Ammunition; From a Pool, or by Magazine?

[Paragon Fury]

So Escapists, I have to ask; do you prefer games where your weapon reloads from a pool of ammo, or games/modes where you reload from a magazine?

The difference being this;

Games where you reload by a "pool" means you just have a big pile of ammo, and even if you reload a partial magazine that ammo is still counted and you get to keep it - EX: Call of Duty, Halo, Battlefield Normal Mode etc. You have 72 Bullets total, your magazine holds 32. You reload at 16 rounds left, it just adds another 16 to your magazine, meaning you now have 56 rounds left total.

Games where you reload via magazine means you have a set number of magazines of ammo for your weapon, and when you reload with a partial magazine you throw the remaining ammo away. EX: Titanfall, ARMA, Rainbow Six, Battlefield Hardcore etc. You have 72 bullets, your magazine holds 32, you reload at 16, you now have 40 rounds total left - or more commonly, you start with 4/5 32 round magazines, and reloading throws one away so now you just have 3/4 rounds left.

 

[DrownedAmmet]

So Escapists, I have to ask; do you prefer games where your weapon reloads from a pool of ammo, or games/modes where you reload from a magazine?

The difference being this;

Games where you reload by a "pool" means you just have a big pile of ammo, and even if you reload a partial magazine that ammo is still counted and you get to keep it - EX: Call of Duty, Halo, Battlefield Normal Mode etc. You have 72 Bullets total, your magazine holds 32. You reload at 16 rounds left, it just adds another 16 to your magazine, meaning you now have 56 rounds left total.

Games where you reload via magazine means you have a set number of magazines of ammo for your weapon, and when you reload with a partial magazine you throw the remaining ammo away. EX: Titanfall, ARMA, Rainbow Six, Battlefield Hardcore etc. You have 72 bullets, your magazine holds 32, you reload at 16, you now have 40 rounds total left - or more commonly, you start with 4/5 32 round magazines, and reloading throws one away so now you just have 3/4 rounds left.

Definitely would love to see the Magazine style in more mainstream games. I still remember the first time I played Rainbow Six Vegas and I kept reloading after one or two shots, and then thought "Why the fuck do I only have 27 rounds when I keep reloading?? Ohhh the game remembered how many mags I had! Damn this game is smart!!"

Its one of those things that I never really noticed about most FPS's, even though I've been around guns my whole life, but it gave me a lot more respect for Rainbow Six Vegas. I would love to see it in the next Call of Duty or Battlefield, it really gives a game a nice tactical and realistic feel

 

[Kingjackl]

Obviously pool is more user-friendly, but I have this OCD thing of trying to level out my ammo pool as a multiple of the clip size so it feels like I have a bunch of full clips (eg, if a gun holds 12 shots per reload, I have to have 24, 36, 48, etc. in reserve). So I'd like to see more magazine reloading in games.

 

[Tayh]

Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield 2 had magazines. Something which I vastly prefer over any streamline-ification of ammo pools, especially in games where shooting is relatively straightforwards, and anything that adds a layer of complexity and tactical thinking is welcome.

 

[Saelune]

Well, the ammo pool is easier, and preferable in more "old school" shooters, but obviously the clip is more realistic, but I rarely see it. Mercenaries 2 is the first I remember seeing it, and I thought it was pretty neat. I suppose any game claiming realism should do clips.

 

[Joccaren]

Depends on the style of shooter.

Run'n'guns, twitch shooters, games that focus on just quickly doing things and where you'll only really use one or two 'clips' of ammo before dying most of the time... Pool tends to be better. Its fast paced, its not meant to make you think tactically or plan things out, its there for you to keep acting and entertained. Not to say you don't have a plan in these games, but in general that's more of a secondary thing to things like your reaction speed and aiming, and mostly consists of just a map pathing cycle.

Games that try to make gameplay a bit slower and more tactical, where planning is supposed to be more important than relexes? Magazines. It creates interesting choices for the player, based on how they plan to go through the match. If you've got 20/30 rounds in this mag, and you're planning on sneaking around and taking one or two guys out... No point in reloading, you've got enough ammo for that, and you'd just be wasting valuable ammo for later if you did. Plan on storming a fortified position with a lot of enemies there? Yeah, you're going to want to reload for that spray'n'pray run, the extra second or two of gunfire might help you out a lot in the end.

So, it depends on what the game is wanting to achieve. Fast paced quick action, or a slower [Though not necessarily crawling] pace where you're expected to plan and make more tactical decisions.

 

[MHR]

Very simple; reload the way it is most commonly done, by pools of ammo. Reloading when you've only shot 2 bullets out of a magazine of 24 is enough to get you in trouble. Discarding the whole magazine is wasteful. There are few rewarding gameplay moments that can arise from having to engage with a partial magazine and not being able to deliver enough damage to make a kill.

The first shooter I'd played enough to get a conventional feel for was Halo; Combat Evolved on PC. I'd assumed the excess ammo expended when prematurely reloading a clip was fed into an auto-processing mechanism in the Spartan armor to make full magazines available quickly. I saw no downside to this.

Playing Alien Swarm on PC was frustrating with certain weapons. The shotgun especially, reloading shotguns AS CLIPS was stupid when there were only 2 per clip as per a conventional double shotgun. There are needless complications that can arise when complicating the ammo reserves in a mostly "mindless" shooter. Either make the ammo an infinite pool like Doom or Heavy/pyro from TF2 or make it by loaded clips without penalty from reloading. I feel only drugeonously "realistic" games or games where ammo regulation is an important feature to benefit from such strict ammo management.

 

[wings012]

Pool works for most part, I see little reason for the other. Yeah it is more realistic, but that doesn't always mean more fun.

If there was some sort of more tactical-survival game, it might be a somewhat interesting to add to inventory management. Where individual magazines are part of your inventory, empty or no and you can only reload those magazines at certain points maybe. Stuff like taped mags and high-cap mags are like sorta 'powerups' you use.