133 réponses à ce sujet

[Battlepope190]

I'm not really sure what you guys are doing in ME2, but obviously you're doing it very wrong. I've not once, across my Soldier, Infiltrator or Vanguard had ammo issues of any kind; they practically FEED you ammo in my experiences, lol.

[Da Mecca]

Indeed.

I never ran out in ME2.

[darth_lopez]

If you are looking at this, forgive me for skimming, From the standpoint that the system is bad because of ammo sparcity, you are lacking a few games in your evaluation. Games that are even more pertanent to your evaluation than the ones you mentioned(i.e. you mentioned mostly FPSs i believe, FPSs typically known for fast pace competitive gameplay not RPGs). You've neglected the fallout series (particularly FO3 and FONV) and, as much as i hate this game, *that game done by obsidian with the spy the name escapes me at the moment)

Firstly Lets talk about the genre difference between a 'Tactical' RPG Shooter and Run and Gun game like Halo, and COD. It's quite stark. In halo and cod you are to simply manage guns and ammo over the course of the campaign If you can't find your ammo for the guns you are carrying kill a man and pick up a new one. It's pretty simple. In ME 2 we have the guns we can use and we have the guns we can use. The ammo system is designed to force thought rather than for a player to simply 'man smash' through enemies(though it's entirely possible) Furthermore Ammo drops aren't nearly as random in ME 2 as it appears And if they are they happen with enough frequency that i only ever hit 0 ammo with pistols and Sniper rifles(good in my book) which are notorious for their massively low ammo counts in comparrison to ARs and SMGs (265~600 is it? unlike CODs ~180 ammo max?) There are also very specific areas in ME 2 where ammo is designed to fall notably kasumis LM where if you play your cards right you literally cannot run out of ammo. Furthermore To make up for occurences where you might run out of Ammo in ME 2 and to suplement general combat every class, possibly excluding soldier and engie, have damaging abilities unlike most of the games you compare it to, however this could be likend to unlimited nades or some form of melle (if you want to pretend ME 2 has no mellee).

The point i'm trying to get at here with that paragraph is that in ME 2 you have numerous ways to manage ammo and control the field incomparrison to COD, BF, Halo, GoW, and even Transformers. The devs have given you literally every advantage over enemies. Not only do you have these abilities grievously high amounts of ammo on primary weapons and  roughly 3 side arms AND a super gun, But your ammo gain to ammo expenditure is lopsided, meaning you gain more ammo than you put out. Every clip you pick up adds to all weapons while every shot only drains from one. Unlike COD, and halo, and etc... Where you typically need to run over the exact copy of a weapon or a gun using the same exact ammo to pick up the ammo and then it only applies to that gun. To continue to widen the combat difference, and thus ammo management in the games, in ME 2 you have competent Team Mates who are at your disposal and have unlimited ammo. They all come with their own horde of powers. All this lets you control the field in such away that managing your ammo becomes close to a triviality. In COD and Co. it's essential yet non essential to watch your amo count because on one hand you might need to activley seek out ammo OR you could simply pick up a weapon that is likely a carbon copy of gun you previously had, just a different skin and different ammo.  In ME 2 each weapon has different tactical attributes that allow it to be used in certain ways this makes you switch weapons depending on the situation which inadvertaintly makes you manage your ammo wisley and subconsciously.

As far as the randomocity of ammo drops. While som random drops exist i can assure you by this point they can't be entirely random. After 7 playthroughs I've been able to accurately go back to certain points in the game and find the same amount of ammo time and time again. The only random part is mobs and typically after a large field of enemies there is a massive ammo cache just waiting to be discovered amid the field of corpses or just past it in a room.

and Lastly the Games you should be comparing this to Are Fall Out 3 and NV and *random obsidian entry in the genre* FO3 while it's far more exapansive is more of a median between COD and Co. and the Shooter RPGs than ME 2 is. and it has greater scarcity of ammo than ME 2 does, given the scale, especially at start. Presently in both my FO3 and FONV playthrough i'm running out of ballistics ammo because it's too expensive to buy and theres not enough on the field for me to find xD (granted i consider 125 low on my .308 and 500 low on my Assualt rifle ammo) And while there is no limit on the ammount of ammo you can have in FO3 and NV (as far as i know) it's a little hard to argue that the ammo isn't scarce until you get a hefty amount of it going. and the scarcity can result in early weapons being totally useless. Unlike ME 2, the ammo system is nearly a carbon copy of COD and Co. And you can find yourself in quite the runt if you just sit there and shoot into the sky until you hit 0 ammo unlike ME2 where you can practically find a refill around every corner.


**side note the explanation for the ammo change in ME 2 works for the lore of ME mechanics when you think about the mechanics from 1 and how this changes things logically and in the form of heatsinks, The change would have been recieved better if you could shoot with no heatsinks and Percentages were used to track "Heating capacity" rather than 'shots to overheat'

[CajNatalie]

A lot of suggestions to hybridize the ME1 and ME2 systems have been put forward that I agree with... and a lot of arguments for the ME2 system have been put forward that I can understand.

The problems are still that...
-Lore is broken. Tech has advanced so much that you can fire weapons practically forever, only having to pause to cool them down, but now they're 100% reliant on ejecting these clip things? The option to avoid a reload (or if you fail at hitting things, then if you run out of ammo) should be there... your weapon will just perform a little worse due to the heat screwing it up, and the cooldown time will make you wish you just used a clip. Just banning the ME1 system altogether makes no sense... I see no reason to encourage it, though, just leave the option there. Thermal clips are in theory the best advance possible. But in effect they are not able to fully replace an overheat/vent system - they are unavoidably imperfect.
-The clips are supposedly universal, and yet you can't use the so-called 'universal' clip from one weapon in another? Wut? Shotguns are now useless unless you can effectively use a Vanguard Charge strategy, and Sniper Rifles, though massively more useable just don't have a sensible amount of ammo... no serious sniper-specialist goes in to a large or even a medium firefight with only 10 damn shots.
-Picking up clips provide only 'half-clips' to your weapons... or less (the Incisor DLC can take up to 4 clip pick-ups to get one clip... sense made? None).
-Running around picking clips up after every fight is tedious. 1 pick-up should be enough to refil everything so you can just get the hell on with it and enjoy the game and shoot stuff / set things on fire / make everything fly

TL;DR: ME2 system is a good fix, but they ****ed up (which has been said a lot)
Fixes: Allow ME1 system as a less-effective but still available fallback - encouraging ammo conservation while still maintaining continuity with ME1's technology - everybody's happy
Fix ammo pick-ups to either whole clips or (even better) refill everything completely on a single pick-up so you can move the **** on
Customize your dispersal of clips so you're not mysteriously unable to transfer "universal" clips from one weapon's clip pool to another

Modifié par CajNatalie, 01 mai 2011 - 05:13 .

[Murmillos]

Adhin wrote...

As for how to fix ME1 system with out heatsyncs? I think kinda what your saying Murmillos but I'd ultimately shorten the overall cooldown period from total overheat to about 3 seconds flat. Majority of reload animations in most supers (that aren't extremely long) are around 1 second. Basically at 90% to 0% it should be 1.5 seconds, and if you overheat it should just toss another second onto that total.

Ok, I get what you are sayig, but I still think you need somewhat cool down difference between using a heatsink, nautral cool down and allowing for total over heat.

Slighty changing the numbers around...

If reloading a heat sink is around .5 second, then a a 95% to 0% auto cooldown should take around 2.5 seconds.  If you over heat to 100% thats addional 2 added on to total cool down. If we keep the near total cool down until you can use your weapon again, we can make the total overheat cooling wait time up to 4 seconds. So as soon as you hear that beep-beep-beep; its up to you to decide what to do; wait, use an alternate power, reload.

4 seconds in a heavy pressing fight can be a life time.

[Devos]

darth_lopez wrote...

The ammo system is designed to force thought rather than for a player to simply 'man smash' through enemies(though it's entirely possible) Furthermore Ammo drops aren't nearly as random in ME 2 as it appears And if they are they happen with enough frequency that i only ever hit 0 ammo with pistols and Sniper rifles(good in my book) which are notorious for their massively low ammo counts in comparrison to ARs and SMGs (265~600 is it? unlike CODs ~180 ammo max?)

The difference is even on Veteran you can drop an enemy in two or three shots in CoD. As I've already pointed out your choice of gun for a situation is already heavily determined by utility, effectiveness against defence type and ability synergy.

to suplement general combat every class, possibly excluding soldier and engie, have damaging abilities unlike most of the games you compare it to, however this could be likend to unlimited nades or some form of melle (if you want to pretend ME 2 has no mellee).

Again, I'm not saying you will run out of ammo frequently, I'm saying you are dumped with empty busy work collecting ammo after every fight.

But the one time I did run out of ammo I had one enemy left to dispatch, a mercenary vanguard. I actually ran out of ammo because I had none left for weapons which were effective against barrier. While emptying every ability available to me and melee to try and drop their barrier, they just recovered it. So hilariously when I did run out of ammo I didn't die, I just ended up stuck in a ridiculous stalemate that made it less effort to repeat the section and hope for more ammo than rely on abilities and squad damage.

In COD and Co. it's essential yet non essential to watch your amo count because on one hand you might need to activley seek out ammo OR you could simply pick up a weapon that is likely a carbon copy of gun you previously had, just a different skin and different ammo.

Except that doesn't really line up with my experience of CoD. First of all ammo capacities are so high (relative to enemy survivability as mentioned earlier) with a little conservation it's possible to clear the shorter levels with your starting ammo in some cases. Secondly the guns your enemies drop tend to be not much worse than your starting stuff, it's still going to kill people ([insert Jackie Brown quote on AK47's]). Thirdly if the game wants you to use a specific gun at some point, it'll give you a shed load of them, sometimes literally.

In both Bad Company 2 and several CoD games there are moments where you are pushed for ammo, but these sections seem to be as a result of deliberate design rather than random drops. Also the end result of these sections isn't a tedious ammo hunt, when the game wants you to have ammo again it just gives it to you.

As for and Co. the other example of a game that doesn't force much ammo management I mentioned was Bad Company 2 which just lets you fully refill your ammo every few fights, no hunting for carbon copies. As for games like Halo and Gears, my point was specifically that they might not always throw masses of ammo at you for the gun of your choice but you can pick up a gun off most enemies. Also Gears does give you universal ammo boxes, moderately frequently. In those games ammo is meant to be a big factor in gun choice.

The bottom line is all of these games do a much better job of dealing with the issue. Consider this, there is a hybrid system in the .ini it was considered, it was tested, even some of the videos showed a different system. It was on the table until quite late it seems. In any of the above mentioned games do you think the ammo system was as late an addition? Personally I doubt it. It's much more core to their design and they all do a much better job of incorporating it into gameplay or just pushing it to the back ground most of the time.

and Lastly the Games you should be comparing this to Are Fall Out 3 and NV and *random obsidian entry in the genre* FO3 while it's far more exapansive is more of a median between COD and Co.

You mean Alpha Protocol, and no, because they are terrible shooters. Consider ME as a whole you can't just compare it to CoD or Halo. As I wrote right at the start, for me ME2 is simply one of the best games made. But it doesn't make sense to suspend criticism and not compare ME2's shooting element to good shooters. The idea hybrid shooters can't be good shooters is just wrong. Uncharted 2 for example is a great shooter, on par with Gears and CoD, but it's not a pure shooter. Also ME2 has less structurally in common with Fall Out 3's sand box than Gears' or CoD's levels. Alpha Protocol might be a little closer but "ME2 is better than Alpha Protocol" is a fairly redundant sentiment. (Though I did sort of enjoy AP in a Deus Ex 3 isn't out for another year sort of way)

Modifié par Devos, 01 mai 2011 - 01:55 .

[Bostur]

Devos wrote...
But the one time I did run out of ammo I had one enemy left to dispatch, a mercenary vanguard. I actually ran out of ammo because I had none left for weapons which were effective against barrier. While emptying every ability available to me and melee to try and drop their barrier, they just recovered it. So hilariously when I did run out of ammo I didn't die, I just ended up stuck in a ridiculous stalemate that made it less effort to repeat the section and hope for more ammo than rely on abilities and squad damage.

Did you consider looking around the battlefield for more ammo to take him down with? There had to be some clips lying around near the dead bodies.


I'm asking because in my experience the system allows for a lot of different playstyles. You seem to go with a fighting style where you make sure every shot counts. Thats ammo efficient but it also means you take more fire, because the enemies won't stay in cover as much.
Another approach is to liberally spray shots around try and keep them in cover, allowing you more mobility. That costs more ammo, but the extra mobility makes it possible to grab clips during combat.

I agree that picking up ammo between battles is a bit tedious, but I don't think its without reason. Ammo can be a limited ressource during a battle but not during a mission as a whole. It very much depends on playstyle and class.

[JaegerBane]

lolwut666 wrote...

Murmillos wrote...

lolwut666 wrote...

Weapon overheat will kill the Claymore.

No, thanks.

Just as your name implies.. lol wut?

I don't know about you, but I can do the Claymore trick really fast.

Suddenly having to stop because it overheated would be lame.

The Claymore is a bad example of this kind of problem - it should never have been give a single-round clip. If we're to believe what the developers have said, the reload trick exists *purely* because of the single-round clip. It probably would have been better if they'd just extended the clip and not bothered with reload-cancelling.

[Tony Gunslinger]

Murmillos wrote...

Adhin wrote...

As for how to fix ME1 system with out heatsyncs? I think kinda what your saying Murmillos but I'd ultimately shorten the overall cooldown period from total overheat to about 3 seconds flat. Majority of reload animations in most supers (that aren't extremely long) are around 1 second. Basically at 90% to 0% it should be 1.5 seconds, and if you overheat it should just toss another second onto that total.

Ok, I get what you are sayig, but I still think you need somewhat cool down difference between using a heatsink, nautral cool down and allowing for total over heat.

Slighty changing the numbers around...

If reloading a heat sink is around .5 second, then a a 95% to 0% auto cooldown should take around 2.5 seconds.  If you over heat to 100% thats addional 2 added on to total cool down. If we keep the near total cool down until you can use your weapon again, we can make the total overheat cooling wait time up to 4 seconds. So as soon as you hear that beep-beep-beep; its up to you to decide what to do; wait, use an alternate power, reload.

4 seconds in a heavy pressing fight can be a life time.

That doesn’t work. The Predator has 300 RPM @ 12 shots, so it currently takes 2.4 seconds to empty a clip. Converting it into the cooldown system, that means if I stop shooting after firing just 4 rounds, how long do I have to wait for coolodown? 4 x 1.5 seconds = 6 secs? That’s worse than normal CD at 1.5 seconds. The guns will have to be redesigned.

Option 2 would be to divide the end-of-clip cd by the number of shots, so if the Predator would be 1.5/12 shots = .125 secs to cool down after firing one round. As long as I shoot faster than .125 secs, I will essentially have unlimited ammo. Imagine what the Mattock can do as long as I shoot just slow enough to overcome the individual shot's cooldown. Doesn’t work either, guns need to be redesigned.

Option 3 would be to have an uneven heat / cooldown ratio so that shots would build up heat no matter how slow you shoot, but then introduce overheat as a penalty. And that's exactly ME1’s system.

Before you know it, you’ll have to re-design all the weapons with either a fixed auto-firing RoF or fixed DPS, and this is why ME1 guns are all the same. You can’t have such a diverse mix of guns (Predator vs. Carniflex, Katana vs. Scimitar, Widow vs Viper) because overheat eventually overrides any variety in RoF or DPS. You’re actually dumbing down weapon design.


@Devo, ammo drops are very common and if you look at any videos in the strategy section, you’ll see that ammo gets replenished quite easily in a lot of ways. Clips will literally drop into your lap if you’re close to them, and killing an Engineer, Vanguard, or any tougher enemies at close range will most likely replenish ammo. There are examples of this in every video posted.

Like people have mentioned, the game does not reward you with the safest tactic, which is camping. You also need a balanced attack between guns and powers, which all the other shooters you’ve mentioned lack.

And if you want to legitimize camping, the fact is, you’re a 3-man Spec-Ops unit vs. a platoon of enemies. Camping back and turning it into a slug-fest against them is about as un-tactical as you can get. Almost every mission, you are on the offense to reach an objective, and the map have alternative routes for flanking if you want to take it. The few fights where you are defending (ie Archangel), you are given plenty of ammo spawns nearby. Ammo clips are fine, and they do add more complex elements in the game. You can see when the enemy is reloading their guns, and the variety in RoF makes enemies use different weapons against you.

I'm not against the thermal cooldown system, but I find the real reason to lobby for it has nothing to do with mechanics or lore, but the inability of the player to make complex decisions in real time, and they want to simplify combat while saying it's more 'RPG' that way, which is pretty hypocritical. I think some people are using 'RPG" as a euphemism for 'Fantasy Fulfillment.' Two completely different things. RPG contains fantasy fulfillment, but fantasy fulfillment is not RPG. You can customize your car in Forza, but it's not RPG.

[lolwut666]

JaegerBane wrote...

lolwut666 wrote...

Murmillos wrote...

lolwut666 wrote...

Weapon overheat will kill the Claymore.

No, thanks.

Just as your name implies.. lol wut?

I don't know about you, but I can do the Claymore trick really fast.

Suddenly having to stop because it overheated would be lame.

The Claymore is a bad example of this kind of problem - it should never have been give a single-round clip. If we're to believe what the developers have said, the reload trick exists *purely* because of the single-round clip. It probably would have been better if they'd just extended the clip and not bothered with reload-cancelling.

I disagree. Being single-shot and hard to use is what gives the Claymore character. Weather the Claymore is the best or the worst shotgun is up to the player's skill.

I don't see what's wrong with having to learn how to use the weapon effectively.

[JaegerBane]

lolwut666 wrote...
I disagree. Being single-shot and hard to use is what gives the Claymore character. Weather the Claymore is the best or the worst shotgun is up to the player's skill.

Actually it's mostly to do with the player's class and playstyle, but that's another argument.

I don't see what's wrong with having to learn how to use the weapon effectively.

Goofy animations aside, the simple answer to this is that it defeats the object of giving the weapon a single-shot clip in the first place. The reload trick doesn't require expert timing to manage (particularly on PC) and doesn't honestly require any more skill than aiming the gun.

To this day I'm not sure about whether Christina Norman was being serious about intentionally writing it in. Writing in a trick that wasn't animated properly and applies to all guns *purely* to offer some kind of 'effective use' to a single weapon doesn't sound like something that was intentional, particularly when al that would have been required was to up the clip.

[lolwut666]

"Poor animation" could be said about any game that includes cancelling.

And some people can't do the Claymore trick well, so it requires at least a minimum amount of skill. I don't see why the game should conform to these players.

And a large clip wouldn't fit the concept of the Claymore. It'd be good in practice, but it would make it just a cheap weapon rather than a "high-risk/high-reward" gun. Plus very high caliber weapons in real life have low clips, anyway.

[Varen Spectre]

Hey OP, if you think that the game does not allow you to make any mistake when it comes to accurate aiming and ammo scavenging, shouldn't you reconsider lowering the difficulty level?

I mean, since my earliest gaming memories the games required particular skill / effort to beat them on particular difficulty and if I did not feel comfortable playing them on that level, I simply lowered that setting.

Simply put, perception of lack of ammo on certain difficulty, especially if the player has several options to choose
from, is not a flaw of game's shooting mechanics nor it, in itself, indicates any lack of polish. 

Modifié par Varen Spectre, 01 mai 2011 - 03:39 .

[lolwut666]

Varen Spectre wrote...

Hey OP, if you think that the game does not allow you to make any mistake when it comes to accurate aiming and ammo scavenging, shouldn't you reconsider lowering the difficulty level?

I mean, since my earliest gaming memories the games required particular skill / effort to beat them on particular difficulty and if I did not feel comfortable playing them on that level, I simply lowered that setting.

Simply put, perception of lack of ammo on certain difficulty, especially if the player has several options to choose
from, is not a flaw of game's shooting mechanics nor it, in itself, indicates any lack of polish. 

I agree whole-heartedly.

It's not difficult if anyone can beat it. You gotta have a minimum amount of skill.

Arguing that "[difficulty] is flawed because I can't beat it" is no argument at all.

[JaegerBane]

lolwut666 wrote...

"Poor animation" could be said about any game that includes cancelling.

Most games that include cancelling animations tend to consider them 'bugs' or 'exploits' - IIRC it hasn't been since the days of Street Fighter where we've seen that kind of thing as parts of the gameplay.

I mean, when a gun's muzzle flash is going off 90 degrees from the point of impact, 'poor animation' is a bit of an understatement.

And some people can't do the Claymore trick well, so it requires at least a minimum amount of skill. I don't see why the game should conform to these players.

No, you're right, it shouldn't pander to people who lack a certain minimal level of skill. Its more that anyone who can consistently hit their targets has the skill to pull off the reload trick, as it's not conceptually any different. My point is that the only players it filters out are the kind of players who can't really play the game at all.

And a large clip wouldn't fit the concept of the Claymore. It'd be good in practice, but it would make it just a cheap weapon rather than a "high-risk/high-reward" gun.

It doesn't necessarily need to be a large clip. Just not one that needs reloaded after every shot, and needs Shep to start reloading while the gun is still recoiling to maintain a practical rate of fire. Something a bit like the Evis would have been sufficient.

Plus very high caliber weapons in real life have low clips, anyway.

Low capacity clips, yes. Not one shot - that hasn't been the case since the 1700s. In real life guns don'f fire faster if a you try to bludgeon thin air with it after firing, nor do they hit targets that are 90 degrees to the right of the barrel when muzzle flash is occuring - what happens in real life isn't really relevant to this situation.

Modifié par JaegerBane, 01 mai 2011 - 04:50 .

[InfiniteCuts]

Let's not turn this into a "you just suck" debate, as OP already predicted.  We're talking about the current ammo system on its own merits and possible alternatives, not player skill level, which obviously is going to vary greatly.  I'm sure there are some very skilled players out that that were just as dismayed as OP when they found out about thermal clips.  I was pretty vocal in my support for ammo before ME2, but didn't think they'd go as far as they did in changing weapons.

For me, the issue is continuity and also they way "ammo" is distributed between weapons.  The current system is generic as all get out and didn't really introduce ammo conservation as a strategy.  Thermal clips are incredibly easy to get... so much so that there is little use for the system aside from making you move around a little and balancing.  I find myself thinking about how to place my shots and conserving heat in ME1 more than I worried about thermal clips in ME2.  Admittedly, that whole system was broken in the late game, but that is where better design comes in... not just wiping the slate clean and handicapping the player 'because the geth do it this way'.

With a hybrid, you keep the incentive to get players to move around (maybe some high level enemies or bosses are only susceptible to certain types of rounds), but you're not forced to expose yourself during a fight.  Also makes scrounging for clips post-battle an option, not a necessity.  The key is to keep things balanced while giving the player options.  Limiting every weapon you have equipped to how much heat a single thermal clip can hold does anything but that.

[Devos]

InfiniteCuts wrote...

Let's not turn this into a "you just suck" debate, as OP already predicted.  We're talking about the current ammo system on its own merits and possible alternatives, not player skill level, which obviously is going to vary greatly.  I'm sure there are some very skilled players out that that were just as dismayed as OP when they found out about thermal clips.

Indeed, "- I never had an issue with it, you just suck" went on the bingo board first as the most common reasoning for the ammo system being ok.

For referance I've always played ME2 on insanity and don't think it's a particularly hard game. While I don't claim to be the greatest player in the world I do ussually play shooters on their top difficulty and not have too much trouble. Also I don't and never have had a problem with ME2 having limited ammo principle, I just think it's poorly executed in practice.

However my point has always been, before defending ME2s ammo system go look at some good shooters and see how they handle it better. If you can't answer that point you aren't making a counter argument.

[TheRealIncarnal]

The main problem with the current Ammunition system is that Shepard is the only person in the galaxy who is using it. Your enemies don't have ammunition, your squadies (thankfully) do not have ammunition, it's just Shepard, which is why it is so easy to run out. The system isn't terrible, but it is just doesn't flow very well, and I'm sure Bioware can greatly improve upon it.  

henno13 wrote...

I think they should use a hybrid of the two systems. It's simple, you can shoot as much as you want, but when the weapon overheats, you have a certain amount of spare heatsinks that can be swapped out as opposed to waiting for it to cool down as you did in ME1.

This is my prefered mechanic, and it seems to make a lot of sense, espescially if the heatsinks are universal. 

Modifié par TheRealIncarnal, 01 mai 2011 - 07:50 .

[Da Mecca]

That's the mechanic everyone wants.

It's a nice middle ground and it wouldn't retcon the lore as severely as it did in ME2.

[Murmillos]

Tony Gunslinger wrote...

That doesn’t work. The Predator has 300 RPM @ 12 shots, so it currently takes 2.4 seconds to empty a clip. Converting it into the cooldown system, that means if I stop shooting after firing just 4 rounds, how long do I have to wait for coolodown? 4 x 1.5 seconds = 6 secs? That’s worse than normal CD at 1.5 seconds. The guns will have to be redesigned.

I'm not quite sure how you are putting all those numbers together but you are far off base - so I can see you are confused and don't like the idea.  But ok, lets hunker down and set you straight.

I stated that a weapons cool down from 95% to 0% (thus if you stop at 95%) should take about 2.5 seconds, slight longer then ME2 current reload time (no tricks). And also about the same time as experienced in ME1.

For any any weapon netural heat generation RPM rate is 1/2 of full RPM rate - slower then 1/2 and you lose heat, faster then 1/2 and you gain heat.

So sticking to the Predator, you are in a opportunity momment; the target is stunned and you want to do as much damage as you can do. You go full bore and fire as fast as full allowed RoF, or 300 RPM.  We can go with "current" round rate, or we can play around with it.. factoring in the cooling that goes on all the time, but lets say you can still only send out 12 rounds at max RPM before over heat kicks in.

But to answer your question, how much time would it take your weapon to cool off if you just fired 4 rounds, at a 12 max round rate at full RPM of 300 RPM - that would be just 1 second, still very quick to cool off.  
Each shot takes .4 seconds to cool down per round, but since there is still that .2 seconds between rounds at max RoF, .2 seconds of heat has cooled off cool off after each shot before you can fire the next round (while keeping .2 seconds of heat that has been cooled off yet), and the last shot taking the full .4 seconds to cool off. .2+.2+.2+.4.

*beep-beep-beep*
So weapon hits over heat mode - two player options show up.
A) Wait it out, weapon starts to cool off; (4.5 seconds total) (1.5 seconds to 50% +3 second weapon 'reset' over heat penalty) - weapon able to start firing again at 50% heat. (or 2.5 seconds to cool down with 2 second weapon reset penalty, weapon at 0% heat ) {{develpers choice in how much time to "penalize" the player}}
Activate emergency cool down cell, takes 1 second from activation before the weapon is fully cool enough to start firing. Between player reaction time, which could be within .2 seconds of hearing the beep up to maybe 1 second on deciding what to do, the aveplayer will have "cooled" off his weapon on average, in *drum roll* 1.5 seconds if activating the heat sink.

Of course, each weapon would need its own balance (not that much difference then their current balance differences already), but keeping most rounds for semi-automatics types with in the standard 12-24 round range at max RoF - much more rounds per slower RoF useage.
Sniper Rifles and some of the heavier Shotguns would have a max RoF of 2-3 shots before needing to cool down - or force a heat sink reload after the 3rd-4th if at max RoF.
Lighter Shotguns would work in the 5-8 round area at max RoF.

Another note; damage and heatsink ablity is closely tied together.  Thus if you increase the heatsink ability, you increase the damage of the weapon, thus keeping the same constant heat gain/loss rate same the entire game (or slight better towards the end).  As long as we are not introduced the never ending firehose (which was dumb to do in the first place, as you were doing less damage then your going potential) then this system will keep a balanced method of play.

Modifié par Murmillos, 01 mai 2011 - 08:06 .

[Murmillos]

double post?

Modifié par Murmillos, 01 mai 2011 - 08:01 .

[Varen Spectre]

 Well, fair enough. I was mostly refering to this post in my previous comment:

Devos wrote...

Simplest fix would be higher ammo capacities, much higher ammo capacities on
the particular low weapons (read Mantis)...  

1.  I guess the question, whether the game difficulty should depend only on  A.I.'s tactics, opponents' healthbars and the damage they inflict (and maybe the number of opponents, but don't I think ME uses this variable) or whether the ammo economics should play big role as well would deserve its own thread (I for one like the idea that I have to be careful on higher difficulties).

2.   As for the comparisons with other games, I am always advocating for them and their detailed analysis. Too bad I almost  don't play modern shooters so I am not much of use here. But from what I have seen, it might be the question of alternate fire modes (ME almost does not have them), the variety of  objects that are actually shot out of the weapons, the rate of fire, the recoil (I love when big guns "kick") and of course the damage they cause.

So, I am not sure if OP suggests further tweaking of these parameters and new balances between them, preferably on the grounds of some modern popular shooter / action game , but if so, I would love to see some more detailed suggestions (what game should be used as model, for which weapon and why would it be better). From him / her or from anyone else who shares the same opinion. 

Modifié par Varen Spectre, 01 mai 2011 - 09:29 .

[Devos]

Varen Spectre wrote...

 Well, fair enough. I was mostly refering to this post in my previous comment:
*snip*

well you missed my disclaimer about why I didn't want to get into specific fixes and also haven't really answered my repeated point about running out of ammo as a rare, seemingly random occurrence and not the main problem. As I keep writing it's the tedious ammo collecting between fights. In practice the low ammo caps have very little impact on actual difficulty, which is what makes the "I didn't have a problem, you must suck." argument so colossally asinine. The biggest impact they have is the ammo collecting busy work they generate, which personally isn't really what I look for as a challenge.

[Tony Gunslinger]

Murmillos wrote...

(snip)

Sorry, I was responding to Adhin’s initial comments regarding ME1’s system, not yours (and no offense to Adhin’s overall post). The idea that you can replace the ammo system with a cooldown system in ME2 can’t be done without modifying all the gun’s performance. You can’t do a straight substitute 1.5 sec reload time with a 1.5 cooldown time because individual gun’s RoF and capacity is fundamentally different, and guns will break, as in the Predator example.

Your idea — keeping reload but also keeping cooldown (but slower) -- is actually similar to what I had in mind at one point. Just a few comments:

- With your cooldown system, I can fire 7 shots, and it will take 2 + .2 + .2 + .2 + .2 + .2 + .4 = 1.6 secs to fully cooldown, about the same time as reloading. As long as I always shoot 7 shots and wait for 1.6 secs, it’s like having a 7-shot Predator with infinite heatsink supply. Is that a good thing?

- The Mattock is kind of a broken gun already so expect it to be modified anyways, but: 750RPM is equal to .08 secs per shot, and 16 rounds theoretically takes 1.28 secs, and the cooldown for each shot would be .16 sec. I think it’s fair to say that the average to skilled player can shoot 16 rounds @ 2.5 – 3 secs, which Is going to be between.15 to .18, so that’s infinite ammo right there.

- The 2.5 sec CD rule will have problems with guns that have longer firing capacity like the Tempest. At 950 RPM, it takes 3.15 secs to empty the clip .063 secs per shot. It will already need 2.5 secs of cooldown when I shoot around 40. Similarly, the Scimitar takes 4.8 secs to shoot 8 shots, and shooting 4 shots will roughly reach the 2.5 mark. The cumulative CD for both of these guns are longer than the 2.5 sec.

- Therefore should the CD not be a set value (2.5), and instead be the same amount as the time to empty a clip with the current gun? Would that be fair?


And yes, let's keep the "you-have-no-skills" argument out of this, it's just as bad as the whole RPG debate. Although I do think that ammo as an element ties into the general gameplay... how the missions are designed, how the enemies behave, and how powers and defenses are used. On insanity, the hardest difficulty, you really shouldn't win a fight by choosing the easiest option, and because people play this game in such a diverse way, not a lot of people know about every aspect of the game. You have people playing only the Soldier and say the game is too easy, and you have people only playing the Adept saying the game sucks, and neither party have played the other's classes. It's just hard to talk about improvements when half the time you have to explain how certain things work to people.

[Murmillos]

Tony Gunslinger wrote...
- With your cooldown system, I can fire 7 shots, and it will take 2 + .2 + .2 + .2 + .2 + .2 + .4 = 1.6 secs to fully cooldown, about the same time as reloading. As long as I always shoot 7 shots and wait for 1.6 secs, it’s like having a 7-shot Predator with infinite heatsink supply. Is that a good thing?

It may set up some situations where you can camp from a safe spot ad infinitum, but that would be the players choice. But regardless, wouldn't you stil work into the other skills during that cool down time (Warp, Overload, Incinerate, ... ...) while waiting for your weapon to cool down?  (and hopefully solider will have more then 1 skill thats not ammo dependant)
It would get rid of the busy work of looking for "ammo" after every fight.  It would also get rid of the randomness of picking of a heat sink.  "this heatsink gives me 11 rounds, while this identical one right next to it gives me 23? WTF..."

- The 2.5 sec CD rule will have problems with guns that have longer firing capacity like the Tempest. At 950 RPM, it takes 3.15 secs to empty the clip .063 secs per shot. It will already need 2.5 secs of cooldown when I shoot around 40. Similarly, the Scimitar takes 4.8 secs to shoot 8 shots, and shooting 4 shots will roughly reach the 2.5 mark. The cumulative CD for both of these guns are longer than the 2.5 sec.

The reload time still only 1.5 seconds in ME2.. so ... I don't get issue.  Are you trying to state that the manual reload time should have match the empty clip time?

- Therefore should the CD not be a set value (2.5),

Yes, because regardless of how quickly you go thru ammo in any weapon in ME2, the reload time is always 1.5 seconds (Note: short of doing every weapon in the game myself - some which I have not unlocked personally - I have to take masseffect wiki for correctness). The same would be if you did over heat and used a cooling sink, but if you allowed time to auto cool, your are giving up some time to "instantly" cool down to wait.  Its a trade off, you shouldn't get something thats better if there is a less of a cost involved. If the auto cool of was a quick as a reload, then why even include a need for reloading or a penalty at all?

And remember, that value is at 95% of max heat.  So if you are playing tacticlly, you are going to be often using a power, firing a couple of rounds, going back into cover, directing a squad mate, taking a quick view of the forces against you and then firing again.  Rarely, unless you are up a very strong enemy or a very big group, do I think you'll be hitting that 95+% mark. And then if you do hit the overheat point, you can slap in a cool off charge and continue on. At worse if you did use them all up, your only out of the game for 4.5 seconds - causing you to be just a tad more careful until the next ammo box (The Heavy Weapon Ammo Box) or refill station.

and instead be the same amount as the time to empty a clip with the current gun? Would that be fair?

Not really, because some guns can empty thier entire clip in less then 2 seconds. If the cool down rate is quick as you empty the gun, you get into spray like territory that was found in ME1 - By keeping the slighty longer auto cool down time then a manual reload, you force a more natural tactical play style. Even if the cool down rate is longer then the time it takes to empty the gun, that is trade off of being able to throw down so many rounds in a short period of time. You still want to encourage use those guns in short bursts - unless the event is dire; but then thats what the cooling reload is for.

- The Mattock is kind of a broken gun already so expect it to be modified anyways, but: 750RPM is equal to .08 secs per shot, and 16 rounds theoretically takes 1.28 secs, and the cooldown for each shot would be .16 sec. I think it’s fair to say that the average to skilled player can shoot 16 rounds @ 2.5 – 3 secs, which Is going to be between.15 to .18, so that’s infinite ammo right there.

Technically, the M-16 (a US Military weapon) as a cyclic rate of 700-950 RPM...  I find the Mattlock to operate much like a real M-16. Semi-automatic (with out the recoil shaking - but then, Shepard is a bad ass who has that weapon on lock down ), works as fast as you can re-squeese the trigger for each shot.  Just because the theroical limit is at 750 RPM, often many other factors at play which means you never will - just the internal dynamics of the weapon are able to operate that fast.



EDIT: Right right.. I get what you are saying. .not every gun can be tied to the RPM rate for cool off time.  It worked for the Predator example, but other guns with extremely high RPM rates break the math as the weapon would cool off faster then you could realistically fire. But granted, thats the theory i'm trying to explain.  For most weapons, if you fire off as fast as possible within the game limits, you'll reach a over heat limit point (to around the same number of rounds in a current "max" clip in ME2, regardless if the full to empty clip time is quicker or longer then 2.5 seconds.

Modifié par Murmillos, 02 mai 2011 - 12:41 .