I'm assuming ammo types will be a thing both in SP and MP. I want to focus mostly in MP for this topic. You can consider it a bit of a rambling, don't take it too serious.
And apologies in advance for some bad grammar here and there, my english is not perfect and I tend to f*ck things up when I write such a wall text like this.
I guess we can all agree at a certain point that ammo was not super balanced, and that we had a few "meh" ammo types (I'm looking at you, cryo and explosive). I wanted to talk about the ones we know from the multiplayer and throw some ideas about how to make them more balanced / useful and maybe bringing back some ME1 ammo types.
Armor piercing ammo:
In ME3 it deals overall more damage against everything and it also has the ability to pierce cover, which makes it a very powerful ammo type.
Technically speaking it should only deal more damage against armor, nothing more. If anything, it should actually deal less damage against health (although, this could turn them into a "meh" ammo type). The ability to pierce light cover seems fair, though.
Drill rounds:
Don't know about you, but in ME3 I consider Drill rounds to be "the ugly sister" of the AP rounds. Granted, drill rounds can pierce up to 2.5m of cover which is nice, but dealing less damage than APs since the maximum lvl of Drill rounds is 3. Not saying they're bad, just kind of a copy 'n paste of APs.
I think they could make it so Drill rounds act somehow as Phasic rounds, but instead of bypassing shields, they could bypass armor. Say, higher levels of this ammo type have a higher damage percentage dealt (as the result of bypassing armor). Of course, this would only be useful if the target has health below the armor, unlike everything in ME3 (much like in ME2).
Cryo rounds:
They don't add any extra damage to the weapon, something that any other round in the game does. If you manage to freeze the target then it's very nice, but if not, they don't do much. The armor weakening is nice, but any shielded target seems to be immune to the effect of this ammo.
Speed reduction is meh, Cryo rounds should also f*ck the accuracy of targets: think about it, when you're freezing your aim goes to garbage, and make your senses numb. The added cryo effect should do a tiny bit more damage to shields / barriers (say 1.2 damage) and add extra damage overall like other ammo types.
Explosive rounds:
Bad designed rounds imo. I've stop using these long ago since there's no fun using them. The explosive effect should be added directly instead of some sort of timed detonation that occurs 1.5 - 2 secs later. They should add a damage percentage to the weapon just as any other ammo type. Same damage to barriers, shields, and armor. The 1.5 - 2.5m explosive radius seems about fair, since we don't want these rounds to turn every weapon into a grenade launcher. They should also add a stagger effect / chance.
Warp and Disruptor ammo:
An idea that occurred to me to differentiate a bit barriers from shields is to make Disruptor rounds useful against shields and Warp rounds useful against barriers, the same with powers.
Tech powers could deal more damage against shielded enemies and biotic powers could deal more damage against barriered (barriered?) enemies, or vice-versa (whatever makes more sense).
In ME there's no difference between shields and barriers, so having Disruptor ammo the way to go against shields and Warp ammo the way to go against barriers is an idea I had long ago.
The current multiplier for barriers / shields is 4x for Disruptor ammo, and nothing (?) for Warp. It could be, say: Disruptor 4x shields / 2x barriers. Warp 4x damage to barriers.
I know this could potentially make Warp even more powerful and nerf a bit more Disruptor, but is just an idea.
That aside, Warp is good as it is imo. Disruptor on the other hand could also had a "disabling" effect for synthetics and / or deal way more damage to them, should we encounter synthetic forms of life in ME:A SP/MP.
Incendiary rounds:
One of the most powerful rounds available thanks to the damage percentage added to the weapon and the DoT. Not much to add about these. The only thing would be: making sure they don't deal extra damage to armor as they did in ME2, because it doesn't make much sense (and we also have a specific ammo type for that) and I think they're powerful enough as they are.
Phasic rounds:
An interesting ammo type. The 10 times damage multiplier to barriers and shields seems OP as f*ck if not for the fact that this is the only thing Phasic rounds are useful for. The shield / barrier bypass is very nice too. I think they're more or less balanced, and I have no idea how to make them more interesting.
I'm checking the ME1 ammo types, it had a lot of ammo to choose from. Although many of those seem to be upgrades of other ammunition already available (Snowblind > Cryo, and so on). We had things like Anti-Organic ammo, basically anti-personnel ammo: crap against armor, good against flesh.
I'd also like to see Polonium rounds, they were almost introduced in ME3 MP (remember the unreleased assets and whatnot?). Having a few "banned" or unconventional ammo types would be nice. As I've said, ME1 had a lot.
So what do you guys think? what would you like to see returning in the ammo department?
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