Generalized Ammunition.

[VikingKing]

Most recently I played Bioshock Infinite and it struck me. While the Vigors, or your Plasmids, all draw from the same resource pool, your guns all require entirely different ammunition for each particular example.

The question is whether ranged weapons should behave in a similar fashion to Vigors/Plasmids in certain video games, with a player possessing an Ammo bar that becomes drained as you use weapons, being replenished by looting enemies or finding particular world items.

Not suited for every game out there, I agree, but I feel like it couldn't hurt to see the concept explored more often. Tweaking the consumption rate of certain weapons depending on their power, rate of fire, accuracy, or special features is a tricky task.

Let your voice be heard. Should games feature an Ammo Bar or should ammunition counters stay the way they are?

 

[Pebkio]

I think Mass Effect 2 and 3 did what you're describing. Back in the day, Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight also did something similar in which some guns shared ammo with other guns.

I don't think it would be a good idea for most games, and not for Bioshock games. It made sense in Mass Effect 2 because you didn't usually have access to all the weapons. You couldn't switch out weapons so not focusing on giving ammo to players who would never have the option to use them made sense.

In Bioshock Infinite, especially in 1999 mode, giving you ammo to guns you don't have (but could get) while limiting the ammo you can have for guns you do have sets up a more tense battlefield survival feeling. If you run out of bullets, you've got to serpentine over to a dead enemy and take his weapon. I feel like it created a more dynamic battle system. This is also why I'm not bothered by the two weapon limitations so much... because sliding over to a dead body in a loosing situation to desperately use his gun and thus turn the tide of battle felt exciting. Additionally, mixing the situation weapon's resources with a normal weapon's resources just seems like a bad idea. "Oh, you wanted to save your BFG for that flesh wall? Well too bad, because you used your machine gun a lot to get here, and they use the same ammo." That's why I wish they had stuck with the demo's version of vigors. That was going to be a kind of ammo system as well.

It also would've made more sense mechanically as, being something you drink, vigors would wear off. You don't stay drunk forever, drinking one glass of water doesn't hydrate you for the rest of your life... so why would flasks of steroids last forever? Plasmids last forever because you were rewriting your DNA, but vigors are just "go juice". Anyway, off topic.

So in general, yes, I like separate ammunition.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well it makes the game boring as shit but it seems there is a growing audience for that sort of thing, so hey why not give those people boredom as one of the options.

 

[madwarper]

It depends on the game, and the technology of guns/ammo it uses.

In futuristic settings, as Mass Effect 2 was mentioned, it's the kind of game that could pull it off. Granted, I still think that the fucking heat sink was the worst part of the sequel.

However, when you're talking about more modern weaponry, it doesn't make sense to have universal ammo.
A rifle isn't going to use the same caliber ammunition as a pistol, shotgun or crossbow.

 

[GiantRaven]

Mass Effect doesn't have a single pool for all ammo. Each gun has it's own separate ammo count but picking up a refill replenishes all your different guns.

It's a much better system than have a generalised ammunition pool. With that, if you run out of bullets for one gun, you've ran out of bullets for all your guns.

 

[Zeh Don]

Deus Ex: Invisible War used the system described in the OP, and it nearly ruined the game, in my opinion.

The concept is simple: if you have any ammo, you can always use the weapon that you want. In theory, this should allow every player to use any play style that they want. It's perfect, right?
The reality is that it robs weapons of their "Pro/Con" nature, and destroy the inherent gameplay balance that a weapon selection needs in order to be meaningful. Every gun must be a sustainable, primary choice weapon as a result of this, and so all of the intrinsic gameplay evolution that they bring is utterly removed.

For example, if you have 12 sniper rifle bullets to carry you through the game, you have to use these bullets carefully and thus the strategy is tied into stealth - you need to avoid enemies in order to ensure that you only need to use 12 bullets throughout the cause of the game. As a result, "sniping" is a selected gameplay choice that has consequences.

If you have an unlimited amount of sniper rifle bullets, and sniper rifles deal more damage than other weapons due to their design, than "sniping" is not a gameplay choice - the most effective method is to use the most cost effective weapon at all times. Gone is the choice of gameplay "styles".

This "most efficient" method is something that gamers in particular always gravitate towards. This is why balancing in gameplay occurs.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

When the game has a shooter focus, then no. Why would a pistol shoot the same round as a AK47, an RPG, and a sniper rifle? Some games do the realistic thing where most assault rifles all use the same ammo, same for pistols, etc. So similar weapons use the same ammo. I think STALKER did it the best where there were different assault rifle ammo types and you had to make sure to get the right ammo for the gun you had. For having everything have the same ammo, it seems to dumbed down to me. Probably only logically work if all the guns were energy weapons and used batteries or something.

 

[loa]

I think it's a bad idea to be out of ammo for everything once you emptied any weapon.
It eliminates the point of fallback weapons, resource management and turns the already paperthin strategy element of shooters into a "find the most ammo efficient weapon and stick with it" numbers game.

 

[Something Amyss]

When the game has a shooter focus, then no. Why would a pistol shoot the same round as a AK47, an RPG, and a sniper rifle?

It ruins my immersion. Sure, I can survive a fifty foot drop and keep shooting, but if I don't use a 762X39mm round for my AK, then my game will be ruined!

Some games do the realistic thing where most assault rifles all use the same ammo, same for pistols, etc.

Except that's not realistic. There are a lot of different rounds for "assault rifles" and a lot of different rounds for "pistols," and a lot of different rounds for "SMGs" and sometimes, they overlap.

Treating all Assault Rifles as using the same ammo pool is decidedly UNrealistic.

I think STALKER did it the best where there were different assault rifle ammo types and you had to make sure to get the right ammo for the gun you had.

See, that's more realistic. It's also silly and pointless micromanaging.

For having everything have the same ammo, it seems to dumbed down to me. Probably only logically work if all the guns were energy weapons and used batteries or something.

Logically, heavy arms will use a heavier "battery" than light arms, because of necessity. So no, that doesn't work.

As for being dumbed down, odds are the games you're playing dumb a lot of things down. So the issue isn't with dumbing things down, it's them being dumbed down in places that don't meet your approval.

 

[Maximum Bert]

It also would've made more sense mechanically as, being something you drink, vigors would wear off. You don't stay drunk forever, drinking one glass of water doesn't hydrate you for the rest of your life... so why would flasks of steroids last forever? Plasmids last forever because you were rewriting your DNA, but vigors are just "go juice". Anyway, off topic.

So in general, yes, I like separate ammunition.

Who says they last forever maybe they do wear off eventually its just longer than the length you spend in the game I could be wrong as I havent finished the game yet but it dosent seem like Booker is there for an extraordinate amount of time so maybe its like a drug and just effects him for a preset duration although he sure gets drunk and recovers fast.

For any game that draws upon any lore correlative to our world shared ammo makes no sense we know guns take different ammo so having it shared seems weird for things we dont have like magic or plasmids or whatever you can do what you want as we have nothing to compare it to. Future settings can get away with it by changing our conception of missile weapons i.e its a laser weapon or something but if it still uses solid ammo then all being interchangeable would still seem weird. Ultimately though its down to how the game is designed and if its designed to take advantage and work with pooled ammo then I will accept it even if it seems bizzare.

One thing that really bugged me in Mass Effect was the changing of the weapons I mean suddenly all the old weapons have disappeared in what a few years? and replaced by worse ones yes they have heat sinks now but they can become useless the old ones had infinite bullets and cooled down after a few seconds if they overheated at all unlike the new ones which stay hot forever without the heatsinks it seems. Why not just add heatsinks to the old weapons to allow for faster firing if required? I know it was purely a gameplay choice but the trouble is it sits at odds with the universe they created.

Overall I dont mind either providing it serves the game they are creating and fits in well.

 

[munx13]

IMO STALKER games did it the best - all Western assault rifles used the standard NATO 5.56x45 ammo, most Soviet rifles used standard 5.45x39 ammo, etc. There are standard ammunition types, but you cant use them for every gun.

 

[ramboondiea]

some games do general ammo, but it always runs the risk of making ammo too abundant, although the later mass effect thermal clips was a good take on the premise, as was deadspace 3, especially when you run with the whole, "reload and you lose the remainder of the clip" mechanic.

didnt hard reset use a bar= ammo thing? i cant remember but for some reason thats what i thought about when i read the op, its been a while since i played it so not sure.

but yeah, generalised ammo can be usefull, but i don't think a vigor mechanic way of doing it is the best idea, although im sure that a game like that does exist

 

[NeutralDrow]

Oni did something like that, with only two ammo types (ballistic and energy) applying to six and five different guns each, so the game can be built to take advantage of it. In Oni's case, it worked mainly because each gun had different strengths and weaknesses and received different amounts of shots with each clip, and you were limited to carrying one on your person...not to mention you started each level with either no weapon or a pistol, and there was a bigger focus on hand-to-hand combat.

 

[shrekfan246]

When the game has a shooter focus, then no. Why would a pistol shoot the same round as a AK47, an RPG, and a sniper rifle?

It ruins my immersion. Sure, I can survive a fifty foot drop and keep shooting, but if I don't use a 762X39mm round for my AK, then my game will be ruined!

Don't forget protagonists that eat bullets like they're Cheerios.

OT: Apart from "drawing from the same pool of ammo to fire", a lot of shooters already "generalize" the ammunition. They might differentiate shotgun, handgun, LMG, assault rifle, sniper rifle, and heavy arms munitions, but you still refill most of them from the same pool whenever you pick up ammo stocks in the game.

I felt like it slightly worked for the atmosphere in Dead Space 3, particularly because reloading early meant you lost whatever ammo was still left in the clip, but ammo was so plentiful that you never had to micromanage your weapons, which is another problem of balance when you have weapons that use ammo at different rates but pull from a generic pool.

 

[Eternal_Lament]

Truth be told, I'm not a fan.

I get the concept in theory: single ammo pool means no situations where you're not getting the right ammo, single ammo pool means no need to micromanage while fighting, single ammo pool means no need to save up awesome gun for boss situations.

But I find it never really works like that. Or rather, it makes the rest of the guns sort of pointless if you can find something that is the most cost-effective gun to use. It doesn't break immersion, but it does break strategy I find. Rather than adapting what you have and the resources available to you to the environment around you, you try to adapt every environment to the one gun you have. In my opinion, at best the system simply exists with no real benefits, at worst the system can make boring game even more boring.

 

[snekadid]

In single player games, separate ammo all the way. It leads to better immersion and better planning.

Online multiplayer we can go with something like what you want, but I would prefer if they just had universal ammo type drops and each weapon had its own ammo pool to draw from, because choosing to use a shotgun should not mean you can't find ammo because the RNG decided none would drop. Besides, you don't keep your ammo from game to game in any that I've played so ammo preservation is not the same issue that you would have in single player games.

 

[MammothBlade]

Separate ammo, at least for different weapons classes. I like detail, universal ammo is a babyish mechanic more suited for arcade shooters. Separate ammo means more strategy and planning is involved, and that's good.

Some games go even further than the Borderlands-style revolver, pistol, smg, sniper ammo, one for each type, and have multiple ammo types for each weapon class (e.g. S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Fallout:New Vegas). That's even better to me, adding to the depth and variety of gameplay. Incendiary, armour piercing, explosive, heck, make ammo boxes like a box of chocolates (except for your gun, not your fat gob, naturally)

 

[WoW Killer]

I don't like to be resolutely for or against singular mechanics, as I'm sure there are certain contexts in which they are more or less appropriate. The analogy with magic systems/mana pools is interesting; if it were the case that split ammo pools always meant deeper gameplay, then the same should be true of Vigors/Plasmids, no? Same thing really.

Taking it a step further, what if a gun has an alt-fire? That's essentially an additional weapon. You can have the alt-fire use the same resource as the primary fire mode (e.g. the Tau Cannon in Half Life), and you can have it use a separate resource (e.g. grenade launcher attachment for an assault rifle). You can do half and half; have multiple resources, but have some weapons share the same pool. In the new Tomb Raider, you could eventually upgrade the bow to fire explosive arrows, but this used up the same ammo as your grenade launcher. It's all valid.

Realism shouldn't be a factor in a pure mechanical sense; fun always trumps realism. But if you've got two mechanics that seem to work and one seems more intuitive ("realistic" is perhaps not the correct word if you're talking about a magic system), then that's a good enough reason to go with it. I'm guessing that's the reason for that shared Vigor pool; it could probably have worked either way, but the shared pool is what we expect from playing other games with similar systems.

 

[maninahat]

One of the few strategies required of gamers is to diversify their use of weapons, in accordance with ammo constraints. It can be a good way of encouraging people to use their entire aresenal of weapons, instead of sticking to the one gun.

It is a double edged sword: mixed ammo can encourage players to be far too miserly with their most powerful weapons, choosing not to use that rocket launcher or BFG ever in the game, because it's too valuable to use. I went through the entire of Doom 3, never once using the BFG, just because the ammo was so rare, and I didn't want to waste it. The original Red Faction got around it by giving you a massive, overpowered rocket launcher within the first half hour. The message was "there will be plenty more where that came from. Go to town my son".