Reloading


(tokamak) #1

Just after playing some Alien Swarm I was reconsidering the way reloading usually works in FPS’s.

The status quo seems to be quickly filling up the bullets in your clip up to the max within two seconds. Which makes you very efficient as you don’t actually throw away the ammo you have left in the clip. This means that you’re usually reloading for the heck of it whenever you got a corner to hide behind.

It’s neither realistic nor, in my opinion, desirable from a gameplay perspective. In AS you throw away your ENTIRE clip when you hit reload. This makes reloading a far less trivial thing to do as you’ll run out of ammo very quickly if you keep tossing away your clips. Especially for the minigun with a long reloading time and a large ammo clip you’ll have to constantly think about what you’re doing.

There’s some interesting implications here. Having lots of ammo clips left makes you significantly stronger than a player who has less clips to go by. It means that you can afford a ‘wasteful’ reload or two in order to keep fighting, meaning that you have more freedom in combat than someone who needs to stick with his almost empty clip to preserve bullets.

Another thing I love, taken from Shattered Horizon, is the concept that disrupting a reload means you lose the entire clip altogether (after all, you removed it from it’s socket and went on to do something else, it means you have a clipless gun). Though in that game you have infinite ammo so the penalty isn’t that harsh as in a game where it’s scarce.

Also the tiny minigame originally from Gears of War, where you, if you hit the reload button again at the right time get a much faster reload (and hitting it wrong delays the reload) is something I’d like to see in a tactical shooter. What makes this reload interesting is that you need to keep your head cool in order to make it work, it requires your attention. This means that a player who is in control of the situation, like, laying an ambush or something will have an advantage over a player that desperately struggles in a fight and has no time to pay attention to reloading. This means that before reloading you need to decide whether you are or aren’t going for the quick reload, a decision based on how hectic the situation you find yourself in is.

Anyway, just some food for thought. I think the reload in most games is way to trivial and simplistic all the while it has so much potential for putting emphasis on skill and tactics within a shooter.


(H0RSE) #2

Although your concept may add to gameplay or “immersion,” you seem to forget (in a lot of your ideas) that above all else, games are designed to be fun, and adding layer, after layer, of innovative gameplay and/or tactics, can lead to increased frustration, micromanagement, etc. which leads to a decrease in fun.


(INF3RN0) #3

No thanks. (Brink ought to be more of a fast paced runNgun game)


(DarkangelUK) #4

Happy as it is


(AnthonyDa) #5

Reminder : In BRINK you can quick reload by pressing the reload button twice, but it only refills half of the loader, right ?


(Icemonkeyjr) #6

Ive also been playing alien swarm and do get your point, but again, as its been said, its just not fun that way, its one more thing to think about when you’ve got plenty of other things to think about, especially in a class based objective driven game like brink. plus, reloading is cool…


(Shiv) #7

alien swarm = panic shooter… clip runs low as enemies get closer o god o god reload dam it… over-run

brink = mp team fps

no thanks at clip drop or the gears reload… i learnt the lancer on gears 1 by muscle memory… always hit perfect reload… even when it was tiny… most of the time without looking. so i guess it then becomes silly :\


(Cankor) #8

what everyone else said.


(Exedore) #9

Left 4 Dead has the same ammo mechanic, and it’s something we considered… but it doesn’t really compliment some of the other gameplay systems in Brink as well as it does in those games. It suits survival games really well.

I’m a big fan of Active Reload in Gears, but again it’s not something that we thought was right for Brink. Never say never, though…


(light_sh4v0r) #10

I’m with everyone else too. It works well in alien swarm because it’s so hectic. In Alien swarm it gives you the choice of taking a bit of risk but save some ammo, or waste ammo but be sure you can handle the next wave without problems.
In a shooter it’s more about the fighting itself, and not so much about ‘I have to conserve ammo or I’ll not be able to survive/progress.’
Note how Brink has command posts where you can get new ammo at all times. (I think anyway.)
That would only make people go back for ammo more often leading to a slower game.


(tokamak) #11

The ammo mechanic is quite absolute, in that there’s no way to tone it down or compromise it in case it influences the gameplay too much. The only way to lessen it’s impact is to give players enough ammo clips to waste so there isn’t an overtly dependence on soldiers handing them out.

As for the active reload, this one is entirely mallable. You can give it as much an influence on the game as you like. There’s many ways you can go about it.

Gears of War had it’s ‘perfect’ margin very late in the reload, meaning that there wasn’t much advantage in shortening your reload but it did gave more powerful shots. Alien Swarm’s active reload doesn’t give more damage but has the margin very early in the reload, which means you can drastically shorten your reload time.

While I think that the ‘waste ammo on reload’ mechanic might complicate games too much (I still think it’s interesting though, especially with soldiers handing out ammo). The active reload however, is only optional. If you don’t want to have anything to do with it then you don’t need to pay attention to it and reload as normal. It’s only just another thing in which players can demonstrate their skill in and reap the benefits. It heightens the skill ceiling by another bit.

Effectively, all it does is represent the difference of paying attention to your reload and reloading with your mind on other things. It’s not really about being good at the mini-game, it’s about rewarding players who know when it’s appropriate to pay attention to your reload and when it’s not.

[QUOTE=light_sh4v0r;233681]Note how Brink has command posts where you can get new ammo at all times. (I think anyway.)
That would only make people go back for ammo more often leading to a slower game.[/QUOTE]

I’ll have to disagree there. It would put more importance on capturing command pots as having them close to you is a clear advantage.


(AnthonyDa) #12

I don’t see what you’re talking about.
L4D has an old school reload system, there is no “quick reload” ala Gears, and you don’t loose the ammo left in your clip.

Really, what are you referring too ? :rolleyes:


(Exedore) #13

[QUOTE=AnthonyDa;233683]I don’t see what you’re talking about.
L4D has an old school reload system, there is no “quick reload” ala Gears, and you don’t loose the ammo left in your clip.

Really, what are you referring too ? :rolleyes:[/QUOTE]
I was referring to losing the ammo left in your clip for an early reload, on last check L4D2 has this system.


(signofzeta) #14

didn’t battlefield 2/2142 have something like a magazine counter as opposed to an ammo counter?


(MadJack) #15

Nope. It doesn’t. Never had.


(DarkangelUK) #16

When you reload in L4D2, your gun clip shows 0, but what was left goes back in your pot, you don’t lose it.


(AnthonyDa) #17


(light_sh4v0r) #18

lol. Let’s just hope he knows what he means for Brink :slight_smile:


(tokamak) #19

You can place the perfect reload at random places in the bar, so you HAVE to pay attention to it. Worked great in Mario Strikers.


(H0RSE) #20

You can place the perfect reload at random places in the bar, so you HAVE to pay attention to it. Worked great in Mario Strikers.

But why add anything like this in the first place? The game works fine without it, why add an necessary mechanic that players need to learn?

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Reloading works fine as it is.