I was thinking of the reloading aspects of Halo and I thought that it would be quite a change to alter how reloading works. Not how it’s done but what happens when you reload.
So even though that this idea has deep roots in realism, let’s just forget that silly realism thing.
I’m not familiar with too many weapons but I’d say that most function the same way. What happens when you reload a weapon before running totally out of bullets is that one bullet is left in the barrel of the gun, and you suddenly have one extra bullet. While the ammo in the cartridge is either thrown away if you do so, or left like that would you choose to use it again.
Halo’s reloading is pretty straight forward. Always the same amount of ammo in bullet weapons, all ammo goes towards your collective ammo pool.
What if we were to change that and instead have it so that if you reload before you run out of ammo you have one extra bullet in your barrel, thus the AR would have 33, the BR 37 and so forth. Any ammo left in the clip you just reloaded is thrown away, meaning that if you just shoot one bullet with the AR and reload you throw away 31 bullets from your ammo pool. Or the clip is put away and later used once your clips start running out of ammo. If you find clips with more ammo you automatically switch your clip with the least ammo with the fullest one.
Plasma weaponry could have a chunk of the charge deplete if it overheats and forerunner weapons could work like human weapons or be more advanced and work like the game does now.
So the effects I see with this is that players would have to be more careful about reloading and use their shots more efficiently, thus become better at hitting. Especially snipers. It’d be a punishing system of sorts.
However it could also potentially slow down the game as players would be less inclined to shoot unless they’re certain they’ll hit.
Not sure if it’s “Halo” enough either. I’m neither for or against this, just want to see the community’s opinion.
> What if we were to change that and instead have it so that if you reload before you run out of ammo you have one extra bullet in your barrel, thus the AR would have 33, the BR 37 and so forth. Any ammo left in the clip you just reloaded is thrown away, meaning that if you just shoot one bullet with the AR and reload you throw away 31 bullets from your ammo pool.
I can’t remember what game it was, but there was a game many years ago that did this. I found it annoying. In shooters, you should reload between engagements to make sure you have a full clip for your next engagement. If you lose ammo left over from the clip you threw away, you now have to avoid reloading in order to avoid losing ammo. This causes you to often make choices between wasting ammo and reloading too early in a firefight, neither of which are good choices to make. It’s a lose-lose for the player and really doesn’t provide for a good gameplay experience in my opinion.
EDIT:
That said, I don’t see the point in giving each weapon an extra bullet after reload–it would have so little of an effect on gameplay, it kinda just seems like fluff. I would be for both ideas implemented in an ultra-realistic military shooter that was more like a simulator than a game, but I think a lot of what makes games fun is that they’re not real. A game should be believable, but believability is different from realism, I think.
> > What if we were to change that and instead have it so that if you reload before you run out of ammo you have one extra bullet in your barrel, thus the AR would have 33, the BR 37 and so forth. Any ammo left in the clip you just reloaded is thrown away, meaning that if you just shoot one bullet with the AR and reload you throw away 31 bullets from your ammo pool.
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> I can’t remember what game it was, but there was a game many years ago that did this. I found it annoying. In shooters, you should reload between engagements to make sure you have a full clip for your next engagement. If you lose ammo left over from the clip you threw away, you now have to avoid reloading in order to avoid losing ammo. This causes you to often make choices between wasting ammo and reloading too early in a firefight, neither of which are good choices to make. It’s a lose-lose for the player and really doesn’t provide for a good gameplay experience in my opinion.
I have to agree with Vek as this would break guns like the CC or NR…and just about everything except maybe the and DMR and BR and even then they would be affected poorly.
The reason it would break these weps I stated is its highly advised that you reload after each engagement or you may end up losing because of a reload that the player held off on to not lose ammo.
Its a well thought out post and you explained your point well but I just can’t see this helping anything but hurting everything. ( gunplay wise)
> > What if we were to change that and instead have it so that if you reload before you run out of ammo you have one extra bullet in your barrel, thus the AR would have 33, the BR 37 and so forth. Any ammo left in the clip you just reloaded is thrown away, meaning that if you just shoot one bullet with the AR and reload you throw away 31 bullets from your ammo pool.
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> I can’t remember what game it was, but there was a game many years ago that did this. I found it annoying. In shooters, you should reload between engagements to make sure you have a full clip for your next engagement. If you lose ammo left over from the clip you threw away, you now have to avoid reloading in order to avoid losing ammo. This causes you to often make choices between wasting ammo and reloading too early in a firefight, neither of which are good choices to make. It’s a lose-lose for the player and really doesn’t provide for a good gameplay experience in my opinion.
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> EDIT:
> That said, I don’t see the point in giving each weapon an extra bullet after reload–it would have so little of an effect on gameplay, it kinda just seems like fluff. I would be for both ideas implemented in an ultra-realistic military shooter that was more like a simulator than a game, but I think a lot of what makes games fun is that they’re not real. A game should be believable, but believability is different from realism, I think.
It is Medal of Honor and battlefield and no I do not want this in Halo. It would get really annoying with the BR and it would give guns like the DMR or human sniper a bigger advantage since one bullet there can actually make a HUGE difference in the outcome of a duel.
I do want changes to at least one of the reloading systems though: Specifically the plasma weapons in the Covenant arsenal.
Currently the battery and overheat mechanism provides almost no gameplay depth and at best serves as a “soft” magazine, since if you pace yourself you can fire the whole clip without “reloading,” with overheating being a stand in for reloading.
Battlefield 4 does this on Hardcore server settings, I believe. Instead of counting each round you have, it goes by magazine. So (hypothetically) if a weapon with a 15-round magazine has a count of 45 rounds, that’s 3 magazines you have for that weapon. I don’t think this would work for Halo. Realism aside, there’s no way to replenish your ammunition like there is in Battlefield, no deploy-able ammo crates on a whim. The current system works. It may need a few tweaks here and there, but it still works. Changing it dramatically from per-round to per-magazine is unnecessary, at least as a normal setting change. If it was a purely-optional setting, then that would be a totally different matter altogether.
The Crysis series has had the “one in the chamber” thing since the beginning, and to be honest, it makes almost no difference. At best, it gives a sniper or grenade launcher ONE extra round if they use a maganzine system (as opposed to the Reach GL, which is single shot).
As for the “reloading before a mag is empty wastes the rest”, I’ve played a couple of games with that, and while it forces you to think about ammo conservation, it’s more irritating than it is helpful.
That said, I wouldn’t mind seeing ammo crates as usable objects in the next halo game - but they can only be used a limited number of times (1-3, varying).
Honestly, I don’t think it’d work when you have a 3-round burst weapon that is so prevalent in Halo. I mean, someone would go for the last shot in their magazine, and end up only firing one round.
> The Crysis series has had the “one in the chamber” thing since the beginning, and to be honest, it makes almost no difference. At best, it gives a sniper or grenade launcher ONE extra round if they use a maganzine system (as opposed to the Reach GL, which is single shot).
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> As for the “reloading before a mag is empty wastes the rest”, I’ve played a couple of games with that, and while it forces you to think about ammo conservation, it’s more irritating than it is helpful.
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> That said, I wouldn’t mind seeing ammo crates as usable objects in the next halo game - but they can only be used a limited number of times (1-3, varying).
Titanfall is the only game that I have played and not minded the “early reload wastes the clip” principle. That being said, Titanfall spawns you with 15 to 16 magazines for your gun so you are never likely to run out.
I think there is one huge problem for this as far as Halo is considered. If your BR has less than 12 rounds left (assuming it’s four shot kill), you would have to reload. And let’s be realistic, no one will count on themselves getting perfect four shot kills. Same applies to any other human weapon that doesn’t kill in one or two shots. No matter how you played, everyone would end up losing all their ammo very fast.
This is a mechanic I would appreciate to see more for games where only a few shots are required to kill. But when getting a kill means having to empty a third of your magazine, even more if strafing is taken into account, this doesn’t seem like a fitting mechanic to me when it comes to Halo.