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> While you could remove reloading from utility weapons just fine i think, i feel the mechanic is a well awarded reprieve from power weapons. If reloading wasn’t a thing then what would you set the ammo capacity at? just the clip or higher? i think limiting a power weapon to just the clip or uncapping the ammo on things like rocket launcher or sniper or any power weapon could be bad for gameplay. Sword could work in Halo 2 with infinite ammo due to the close range restriction, even then i feel it’s better suited to an ammo capacity.
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> Players usually rotate into power weapons, go out of their way, cease playing against a team sometimes to pick it up. If a sniper only gave you 4 shots before replacing either there will be less sniping (if spawn time is kept the same) or more dead time picking up ammo (if it spawns quicker).
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> While you could do away with reloading i don’t think it would serve to benefit the gameplay established in Halo. Halo plays well with those little moments of vulnerability like switching weapons, picking up weapons, reloading or throwing a grenade, as it better -Yoink!- outplay and prioritization; like rock paper scissors. I don’t think an escape mechanic like sprint no matter how it is split, -Yoink!- in the nuance of confrontation or interaction with the opposing team like small pockets of vulnerability do.
With the Rocket Launcher, you could tune the fire rate if you’re worried about the weapon becoming too powerful. I feel like the CE version is already slow enough that if you actually manage to get in the third shot, either you’re a really bad shot, or your opponents are. With the Sniper Rifle that’s not an option, but provided the weapon is difficult enough to use, I’m not sure if being able to fire eight shots in a row actually poses that big of an issue. Of course things change if it’s anything like the Halo 4/5 Sniper Rifle, but I think we can take it for granted that the weapons should be well designed to begin with. I also believe tweaking weapon spawn times are a much better option than you give them credit for. I don’t see how picking up ammo is dead time as long as you’re sensible about spawn locations, and try to avoid freebie power weapons as much as possible.
With that said, I wouldn’t necessarily go as far as to make the argument that reloading is a completely useless mechanic. The Sniper Rifle seems like an example of a weapon, where it is might be useful for controlling the power of the weapon. What I would say is that reloading is not a necessary mechanic for the vast majority of weapons. Heck, a portion of the Halo sandbox has traditionally not even had a reload mechanic, relying entirely on overheating. You brought up utility weapons (and I’d actually extend that to probably most niche weapons), and I think those are a prime example of weapons that don’t necessarily need a reload mechanic. It’d certainly change how the game plays, namely how the pacing works when players don’t need to slow down to reload, but I don’t see why that would be any worse.
I’m not awfully well prepared to have this discussion, because while it’s something that pops to my mind every now and then (mainly when people bring up the role of reloading in gameplay), I haven’t got to give it an awful lot of thought. It’s a fun curiosity that’d almost certainly get shot down by most people.
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> I’d be interested in reading that argument. It’s something I’m rather on the fence about and probably have overlooked some aspects of the mechanic/it’s effects.
Eh, it’s not much more than what I’ve already said above and in the original post. While writing the above paragraphs, I came to the conclusion that the crux of it is that reloading is more of an alternative tool for the designer than an essential tactical element for the player. It gives more control over the power levels of weapons, and can help with the pacing of gameplay, but in many cases one could probably do equally well without it.
Maybe I could’ve said there can be to much randomness. My point was adding things for the sake of being random isn’t really good for competitive play as you’re adding more elements a player has to take into consideration, hence how there can be to much randomness. Where that line of “to much” is can be debated.