Remove One-Size-Fits-All Ammution Pools And Base Everything Around Magazine Size

[Saenol]

I strongly believe that the game would both make more sense (not talking about realism, just in-context game logic), and that gameplay would improve, if ammunition pools were tied to magazine size.

 

Currently nearly all weapons that use rifle ammo have a base ammo pool of 540, while those that use the pistol pool are 210, and so on.

 

The problem with this is that these pools are often not evenly divisible by magazine size. For example, My modded Gorgon carries 117 rounds per magazine, which means that with a 540 round reload pool, that I am for whatever reason, carrying four full magazines/reloads, and an inexplicable magazine that has only 72 rounds in it. This is bizarre.

 

My tenative suggestions are as follows:

 

- All standard rifles should carry five full magazines of reloads (in addition to the one already locked and loaded), pistols should carry six, and heavy support/specialty weapons should carry four (Gorgon, Supra, Ogris, etc), regardless of what their magazine capacity happens to be.

 

- All total ammo capacity mods should increase the number of magazines/reloads carried by one per rank on any weapon with discrete magazines for reloads.

 

- Throwing weapons should work more like bows*, and not have a magazine size, or reload time, but should have a smaller pool of ammunition than they currently do (I walk around carrying 413 throwing stars, which is utterly absurd).

 

*Conversely, bows could be given a small magazine size, as holding and knocking arrows from the bow hand is, in actuality, more efficient than reaching into a quiver. The charge mechanism on bows is also silly. No bow benefits from being held, this just tires the archer. You draw back to an optimal/maximum draw and release, all in one smooth motion. You only hold with a drawn arrow to wait for a clear shot or when aiming carefully (equivalent to the zoom function in game).

 

- The word "clip" should stop being used where "magazine" is more appropriate.

 

Anyway, the specifics are certainly subject to refinement, but I do think the core point that magazine size and total ammunition capacity should be more closely related is a must. Likewise, some weapons have too low total magazine capacity (a few small caliber full autos), while others (knives and especially the Ogris) have comically large pools of ammo.

[Veidgrim]

I like it

[MangoMonkey]

*cough* Love this idea *cough*

[Archistopheles]

Like Mr. Mango Monkey has pointed out,

 

We have been asking for this for awhile now.

[theangelbelow88]

Ogris: 545 ammo, enough said...

[Webly]

Not a bad idea.

[DeathByTeaCup]

yes but what about the other guns..  u never once talked about guns with low mag cap or guns like twin vip.. or latron.. etc u just wanted make your point sound good so u talked about guns that would benefit.

[Eirshy]

The (lore) problem is you're assuming we're carrying spare mags, and not doing digistruct ammo. Where the hell on your warframe are you keeping all this ammo?

 

The idea of Digistruct used in Borderlands is seriously the best bag-of-holding handwave for FPSes since ever, and whenever the tech level and situation is compatable with something similar to it, it seriously should be used imo

 

 

 

That being said, there could totally be max ammo mods for warframes too, and the scav auras should be changed to an increase in the ammo gained from packs (not an increase in drop chance).

Edited July 25, 2013 by TheBlueJelly

[Saenol]

yes but what about the other guns..  u never once talked about guns with low mag cap or guns like twin vip.. or latron.. etc u just wanted make your point sound good so u talked about guns that would benefit.

 

Evidently you didn't read my post.

 

Firstly, it wasn't about buffing or nerfing any weapon specifically, simply making ammunition capacities make more sense and be related to magazine size.

 

Secondly, no weapon I mentioned would get a boost in total ammo in it's base state. I did not talk "about guns that would benefit". Indeed, the Twin Vipers lose less capacity than any of my examples.

 

Here are the figures:

 

Gorgon/Supra = 90 base mag size + 4 reloads = 450 total ammunition capacity, with the above numbers, vs. 630 base.

 

Ogris = 5 base mag size + 4 reloads = 25 total ammunition capacity vs. 545 base.

 

Twin Vipers =  28 base mag size + 6 reloads = 198 total ammunition capacity vs. 238 base.

 

Fully modded capacities all exceed their current maximum figures, but by default, and by any configuration I mentioned, the weapons you seem to think I was using to make my suggestion "sound good" are hurt more, in both relative and absolute terms, than the Twin Viper example you bring up.

 

Lastly, the specific numbers are immaterial. I specifically said they were tentative suggestions. It could easily be turned into an all round nerf, or an all round buff, while still doing the job.

 

So yeah, you don't know what you are talking about. You both missed the point of my suggestion, and completely botched the details of the changes.

 

 

The (lore) problem is you're assuming we're carrying spare mags, and not doing digistruct ammo. Where the hell on your warframe are you keeping all this ammo?

 

The idea of Digistruct used in Borderlands is seriously the best bag-of-holding handwave for FPSes since ever, and whenever the tech level and situation is compatable with something similar to it, it seriously should be used imo

 

 

 

That being said, there could totally be max ammo mods for warframes too, and the scav auras should be changed to an increase in the ammo gained from packs (not an increase in drop chance).

 

I had to look up "digistruct", as I am not familiar with Borderlands.

 

I was indeed assuming that Warframes are carrying physical ammo around, and looting physical ammo from drops, and carrying around physical ammo boxes. Not going into great detail with the inventory system and not modeling harnesses and bandoleers is the same sort of handwaving and abstraction as this "digistruct" in my view.

 

Either could work, but in the absence of any lore suggesting a "digistruct" like system, and several game conventions that suggest against it, I feel the physical route seems more likely.

 

Indeed if everything was 'digistructed' on the fly, why have magzine sizes at all? Why would you not simply install a 'digistrutor' where the magazine would go, and create ammunition as it was needed, with no need for reloads or mag swapping at all?

Edited July 25, 2013 by Saenol

[Naqel]

+1

 

It is one among many changes that would make the game have a lot more sense, and open up more guns to viable use.

[Webly]

This would mean better gameplay and I see no glaring inconsistency with the lore (and GAMEPLAY COMES FIRST ANYWAY).

Please keep that "muh lore" trash to yourself.

[zyraconne]

Except some of the weapons are based on a "small clip size" property. [single] Viper, for example: 16 base damage, 14 clip size, 14x6 would be 84? And Bronco? While I agree we shouldn't have a set capacity for every gun, I don't think generalizing it by a modifier is how you'd do it. You have to consider it separately for every single weapon.

 

Also, shurikens are taken by a bunch and then thrown. And there's a reason why it has a hole. 

[BadAimbot]

Your system is still one size fits all. It would not solve any problems except making Magazine Capacity mods better (which can be done but just buffing them).

[HammerHead90]

As a current user of Grakartakara/Twin Vipers, I really like that idea. I run out of ammo way to fast, way too often.

[Webly]

Except some of the weapons are based on a "small clip size" property. [single] Viper, for example: 16 base damage, 14 clip size, 14x6 would be 84? And Bronco? While I agree we shouldn't have a set capacity for every gun, I don't think generalizing it by a modifier is how you'd do it. You have to consider it separately for every single weapon.

 

Also, shurikens are taken by a bunch and then thrown. And there's a reason why it has a hole. 

 

 

Your system is still one size fits all. It would not solve any problems except making Magazine Capacity mods better (which can be done but just buffing them).

 

What would you guys do instead?  I think at the very least you'd say the direction the OP's thinking in is good though right?

[D1398342003]

I personally like this idea better than the current system, but I think simply adjusting the current ammo pools on a gun by gun basis would be better.

 

Give bullet hoses more ammo, restrict marksman ammo. Furis is pretty good at it's current ammo pool/consumption, but Viper is terrible, whilethe Lex will never run out of ammo. Doubling Viper ammo and halving Lex ammo would be a fair trade.

[Hayden11121]

What about Bronco?

 

Am I supposed to get 2 bullets per mag with Bronco?

 

I like the idea, but smaller clip sized ammo efficient weapons should keep their ammo efficiency.

 

That is why I am getting Bronco Prime built as we speak.
 

[MoyuTheTrinity]

Except some of the weapons are based on a "small clip size" property. [single] Viper, for example: 16 base damage, 14 clip size, 14x6 would be 84? And Bronco? While I agree we shouldn't have a set capacity for every gun, I don't think generalizing it by a modifier is how you'd do it. You have to consider it separately for every single weapon.

 

Also, shurikens are taken by a bunch and then thrown. And there's a reason why it has a hole. 

shurikens need a nerf they have the highest dps in the game either make them  2 in the clip or no clip and nerf their ammo to that of a bow

bam insta balance in a cup just add water

[Eirshy]

shurikens need a nerf they have the highest dps in the game either make them  2 in the clip or no clip and nerf their ammo to that of a bow

bam insta balance in a cup just add water

 

Ah one of the many people who misunderstand...

Hikou/Kunai/Despair/Acrid are not OP. Everything else is UP.

 

Nerf armor, don't nerf the only endgame-viable secondaries.

 

 

I had to look up "digistruct", as I am not familiar with Borderlands.

 

I was indeed assuming that Warframes are carrying physical ammo around, and looting physical ammo from drops, and carrying around physical ammo boxes. Not going into great detail with the inventory system and not modeling harnesses and bandoleers is the same sort of handwaving and abstraction as this "digistruct" in my view.

 

Either could work, but in the absence of any lore suggesting a "digistruct" like system, and several game conventions that suggest against it, I feel the physical route seems more likely.

 

Indeed if everything was 'digistructed' on the fly, why have magzine sizes at all? Why would you not simply install a 'digistrutor' where the magazine would go, and create ammunition as it was needed, with no need for reloads or mag swapping at all?

 

Retrying this with an actual reply.

 

With regards to carrying physical ammo in terms of clips, the problem is then when are you putting ammo back into your clips, why does your reload pull bullets rather than clip count, etc, etc. Clips don't magically refill themselves, and partial reloads don't work if you're using a clip-based system.

 

Building the ammo feed construction system into the gun makes it harder to swap weapons on the fly, as all of your ammo would be stored within the gun. While Warframe doesn't have mid-mission gun swapping, Borderlands is heavily characterized by this. Theoretically you could do this... but powering it would be complicated and then you'd have to deal with heat dissipation (the limiting factor in Mass Effect, which had guns being wholely self-contained and the only restriction on firing was heat). Having an actual "reload" can allow for weapons to pool heat in the mags and remove it when reloaded.

 

As for an in-game lore tie-in.... Capture Missions appear to do a digistruct scan of the captive.

 

 

 

 

As to the mag-based ammo system you suggest... You can't do a flat system where you get n extra mags for gun type y. Why?

Twin Vipers need an x7.5 to equal where they're at right now (and that's way too little ammo, not even sure how you could keep a straight face while suggesting we lower their unmodded ammo pool). Single vipers, however, need an x15- and they have similar ammo problems to the Twins. On top of that, it actually would make sense for the single to have more mags, because one "mag" for the twins is actually two mags for the single.

 

And then you get to Broncos, which would just be downright $&*&*#(%& without you having at least 30 mags- which asks the question of why you can't have 30 mags for your Vipers, which then asks why you only get 30 for the Broncos with their TWO SHOT CLIPS EACH...

 

 

 

It'd simply be better all-around if they were to just do away with the flat 540 Rifle 120 Shotty 72 Special 210 Secondary and put it based on the gun itself (and make ammo drops percentage-based instead of flat). Looking at mag size is a start, but very, VERY far from a good way to judge an gun's ammo consumption. Vipers spend more time reloading than firing. Broncos have 2-shot clips. I've gon entire T3 runs without a single sniper ammo drop, making that 78 total rounds my snidal gets base (I *do* run ammo drum, but the base is still 72+6) require ammo packs to make it through the level.

Edited July 26, 2013 by TheBlueJelly

[NovusNiveus]

What about Bronco?

 

Am I supposed to get 2 bullets per mag with Bronco?

 

I like the idea, but smaller clip sized ammo efficient weapons should keep their ammo efficiency.

 

That is why I am getting Bronco Prime built as we speak.

 

 

The most maddening thing about this is that the Bronco quite clearly has a revolver-style cylinder with six chambers. Are we to assume that it fires three shells at once? One could argue that this is reflected on the model (three barrels), but the cylinder itself doesn't line up.

[Saenol]

I like the idea, but smaller clip sized ammo efficient weapons should keep their ammo efficiency.

 

Magazine.

 

Ammunition is typically assigned/carried based on apparent need and weight/bulk. It's simply not practical to carry as many .50 cal or 12 gauge rounds as it is 5.56mm rounds.

 

With regards to carrying physical ammo in terms of clips, the problem is then when are you putting ammo back into your clips, why does your reload pull bullets rather than clip count, etc, etc. Clips don't magically refill themselves, and partial reloads don't work if you're using a clip-based system.

 

There are games where each magazine is treated as a distinct object, with the number of remaining rounds tracked for each one. However, I find this overly simulationist for Warframe and I'd just abstract it and assume that you are shuffling rounds between mags as needs.

 

Moving to a per-magazine based system is more about correcting the anomaly of starting with bizarre ammunition counts, where it goes from there is another matter. I'd even be fine with no particular cap on maximum ammo that can be carried (within reason). Still, a cap could be justified by saying that you only have so many places (straps/pockets) to efficiently store magazines while you are running, fighting, and parkouring around; and it's logical that all of these would be filled at the beginning of a mission.

 

Theoretically you could do this... but powering it would be complicated and then you'd have to deal with heat dissipation (the limiting factor in Mass Effect, which had guns being wholely self-contained and the only restriction on firing was heat). Having an actual "reload" can allow for weapons to pool heat in the mags and remove it when reloaded.

 

Heat dissipation is the least of the technical issues here. Moving heat to a magazine and the swapping it would be more difficult that just letting conduction/convection and radiation take care of it.

 

As for an in-game lore tie-in.... Capture Missions appear to do a digistruct scan of the captive.

 

I always figured it was a form of teleportation, given the response Lotus gives upon capture. Though I suppose the change in color could indicate the captive was being carried along.

 

As to the mag-based ammo system you suggest... You can't do a flat system where you get n extra mags for gun type y. Why?

Twin Vipers need an x7.5 to equal where they're at right now (and that's way too little ammo, not even sure how you could keep a straight face while suggesting we lower their unmodded ammo pool). Single vipers, however, need an x15- and they have similar ammo problems to the Twins. On top of that, it actually would make sense for the single to have more mags, because one "mag" for the twins is actually two mags for the single.

 

And then you get to Broncos, which would just be downright $&*&*#(%& without you having at least 30 mags- which asks the question of why you can't have 30 mags for your Vipers, which then asks why you only get 30 for the Broncos with their TWO SHOT CLIPS EACH...

 

It'd simply be better all-around if they were to just do away with the flat 540 Rifle 120 Shotty 72 Special 210 Secondary and put it based on the gun itself (and make ammo drops percentage-based instead of flat). Looking at mag size is a start, but very, VERY far from a good way to judge an gun's ammo consumption. Vipers spend more time reloading than firing. Broncos have 2-shot clips. I've gon entire T3 runs without a single sniper ammo drop, making that 78 total rounds my snidal gets base (I *do* run ammo drum, but the base is still 72+6) require ammo packs to make it through the level.

 

I'm not judging ammo consumption by their magazine size. Everything you've said in these paragraphs is balance material, which I'm not addressing at all.

 

Logically, you can carry an order of magnitude more .22LR rounds for your survival rifle than you can 12-gauge slugs for your AA-12. The fact that the AA-12 can burn through all the ammunition you can practically carry very rapidly, while the .22 rifle will take forever to exhaust the same weight in ammo, doesn't change how much you can carry.

 

The problem I see with assigning a flat value based on weapon is again, strange, fractional, magazine sizes. An unmodded Gorgon has a 90 round magazine; it's 117 rounds for one with maxed magazine warp, or 135 rounds if you add maxed wild fire on top of this. Indeed almost any magazine size between 90 and 135 can be achived with the right combination of correctly ranked mods. A flat pool, even tailored to each specific weapon, does not take this into account.

[Eirshy]

There are games where each magazine is treated as a distinct object, with the number of remaining rounds tracked for each one. However, I find this overly simulationist for Warframe and I'd just abstract it and assume that you are shuffling rounds between mags as needs.

 

Moving to a per-magazine based system is more about correcting the anomaly of starting with bizarre ammunition counts, where it goes from there is another matter. I'd even be fine with no particular cap on maximum ammo that can be carried (within reason). Still, a cap could be justified by saying that you only have so many places (straps/pockets) to efficiently store magazines while you are running, fighting, and parkouring around; and it's logical that all of these would be filled at the beginning of a mission.

 

 

Heat dissipation is the least of the technical issues here. Moving heat to a magazine and the swapping it would be more difficult that just letting conduction/convection and radiation take care of it.

 

 

I always figured it was a form of teleportation, given the response Lotus gives upon capture. Though I suppose the change in color could indicate the captive was being carried along.

 

 

I'm not judging ammo consumption by their magazine size. Everything you've said in these paragraphs is balance material, which I'm not addressing at all.

 

Logically, you can carry an order of magnitude more .22LR rounds for your survival rifle than you can 12-gauge slugs for your AA-12. The fact that the AA-12 can burn through all the ammunition you can practically carry very rapidly, while the .22 rifle will take forever to exhaust the same weight in ammo, doesn't change how much you can carry.

 

The problem I see with assigning a flat value based on weapon is again, strange, fractional, magazine sizes. An unmodded Gorgon has a 90 round magazine; it's 117 rounds for one with maxed magazine warp, or 135 rounds if you add maxed wild fire on top of this. Indeed almost any magazine size between 90 and 135 can be achived with the right combination of correctly ranked mods. A flat pool, even tailored to each specific weapon, does not take this into account.

 

The only game I've ever played that did mags was Battlefield 2142 (loved that game, btw... especially the time I decided to make a sniper, so I started a new soldier and got 2nd place on my team on a vanilla... I think I was on Support. <3 the Goliath, especially when you end up in the driver seat. So many assists @_@), and you only kept full mags. Tracking non-full mags seems awkward and too sim-y for Space Ninjas With Guns: Have Fun. Out of curiosity, what game even does that? America's Army is the only one I can think of that would have a reason to do so, otherwise it'd be a very annoying mechanic (either on the UI end or in terms of mechanics).

 

 

 

You haven't played Mass Effect, have you? That's exactly what you were doing in 2 and 3. It's not that complicated, heat sinks are a thing (and they operate off of convection/conduction), combine with unobtanium and/or sufficiently advanced tech, and it works extremely well. Pool heat and eject it, saves you the trouble of waiting for convection/conduction to naturally do their thing.

 

Speaking of this, iirc if an A-10 were to unload its entire ammo pool for its gattling in one go, the barrels would melt either right before or right as it finished firing. Heat is a HUGE restriction, and limiting fire rate (and forcing downtime for reloading) is a very good way to mitigate that (as it gives time for convection/conduction to work). Removing the downtime of reloading massively reduces the amount of time the weapon gets to cool, making cooling more of an issue. Hence why Mass Effect guns cannonically have infinite ammo, but require (ejectable in 2 and 3) heatsinks to soak up all of the heat they generate- and are restricted in firing by heat.

 

I know that's an extreme case, but otherwise you'd be able to basically fire your entire ammo pool without ever pausing, which is kinda... not balanced for this game.

 

What's the other issue here, since you implied there was one but didn't state it?

 

 

 

If it was a form of teleportation, why the hell do we actually have to get to extraction? Why can't we just ask Scotty to beam us back to base =P The Lotus has been known to make "drunk" comments before, I merely chalked it up to that.

 

 

 

Then I'm misunderstanding what you're suggesting. It sounded like you were saying "give us n reloads of our primaries and m reloads of our secondaries" when you're apparently actually saying "give us x reloads for the Gorgon, y reloads for the Braton, z reloads for the Lex, w reloads for Vipers, etc". Which is almost functionally the same as "make max ammo pools be weapon-specifc rather than slot-specific", minus one thing.

 

It makes the +Mag mods affect ammo max... Then what the flying F*** are the +Ammo mods even for? Oh, they give you more reloads? At one per rank, your Gorgon's sitting at +6 more reloads. That's between 540 and 810 more rounds (compared to the current 162 more). You'd have 6 mags minimum right now (to keep a lateral shift on the base ammo for the gun; 540/90 = 6), so you'd be potentially walking around with 1620 rounds. You just trippled the efficiency of ammo packs without solving anything (the actual issue of the base ammo pool (and ammo gain rate) being too low for the Gorgon and Supra).

 

Compare this to what you'd do to the single Viper... Trick Mag would go from +189 on non-Slip/Ice Viper to  +84 (1 reload per rank) or +168 (2 reloads per rank).

 

As to making the +Ammo mod be % based, now we have it in the oposite direction, as it'd be crap for something like the Gorgon or Twin Vipers, but outrageously powerful on the single Viper.

 

 

Remember, those fractional mags are because you decided to increase your gun's capacity, not your carrying weight (something you even acknowledged).

 

 

A *better* solution that doesn't make +mag do +ammo's job (which would require them both to get a massive makeover) would be to make ammo pickup quantity and ammo pools based on weapon rather than weapon slot. Allows a fix for unmodded versions, doesn't make rebalancing mods a pain in the &amp;#&#33;, adds annother possible mod (add a +% Pickup mod for weapons themselves, or even just change the Scav auras to that so they're actually useful), and (imo) makes a few tons more sense.

Edited July 28, 2013 by TheBlueJelly

[Shroudb]

in some cases it does more sense that we have a steady number of bullets:

p.e. a clip that holds 15 bullets takes much, MUCH less space than a belt holding 100s, so it is resonable to carry 10-15clips (heck, in guard duty only you can carry 6 easily, i imagine if i am going to storm a spaceship with another 3 guys i would fit magazines to the brim)

 

in other cases, (bolts...) it simply does not compute.

 

The "best" imo would be if they resticted maximum ammo based on damage type:

bullets for rifles: 540

bolts for rifles: x (where x is lower than 540)

bullets for pistols 210

bolts for pistols y (where y is lower than 210)

and etc

 

this could give an additional (much needed) boost to normal bullets

Edited July 28, 2013 by Shroudb

[Davoodoo]

Start by making ammo pickups into categories: rifle pistol special.

Now rifle category

gorgon and supra should get 1000

braton grakata etc 500

latron 250

snipers bows 100

hek strun 100

boar sobek 250

special category

ogris 20

torid 100

ignis flux 1000

pistol category

lato vasto etc 250

vipers furis 500

spectra 1000

bronco 50

lex seer 100

and each pickup refills 5% of these, it will be 25 for rifles 50 for mg and so on but since there will be less pickup categories ammo should be easier to come by and even without pickups that amount of additional ammo should last for whole capture/sabotage/raid mission.

[Webly]

Good ideas, good thread.