I have done it successfully with the class of tanks, but not the harvesters - end up blowing them up completely. Right - we’d just have stunted machines running around and no new enemies!
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That sounds like a good idea. It would add a lot to the game.
On the one side surely it’d be realistic to limit the ammount of ammo on the bots, BUT let’s have a look at how that’d change the game.
Option A: The limit is tiny and the machines constantly run out of ammo within seconds of a fight, leading to the machines more or less going berserk into meele, something that Runners and hunters do on their own already at times. Also running out of ammo would make any harvester about as dangerous as a tipped over cow. And in the end we’d find no ammo on the bots, because they fired it all away, and the next step would be that we find no ammo around or barely because the bots are looting and reforging it for their own needs. and back to meele we go.
Option B: The limit is way too high and you’d have to spent hours on end dodging and evading attacks before bots run out of ammo. So you either fight them like today where they shoot you until they die or you hide behind some cover, go out of the house do some shopping, prepare a nice meal, have a talk with friends and in the evening return to watch the machines shooting off their last bullets to then kill them, but is that still playing the game? and fun?
Option C: The limit is just perfect, Machines drop lots of ammo when killed early but tend to run out of ammo in intense and longer battles just like a player with 20KG worth or equiptment … but where is that ‘golden balance’? Is it worth the trouble to put a system into the game that you may not see or feel active at times?
Summary / TLDR: I think that giving machines limited ammo would be too much trouble than what it’d be worth. In the end Generation Zero is an action FPS with rpg aspects and not a post apocalyptic horror survival simulator. But in the spirit of guerilla warfare, maybe sometimes machines are spawned as ‘out of ammo’ potentially on their way for rearmament who are obviously an easyer target.
What about not fixed amount, but randomised within certain limits?
Also, limit ammo for certain attacks?
My thoughts:
Introducing “limited ammo” flag, like they did with Harvester’s hunter call-in, for all machines would decrease difficulty for attrition wars.
Like Reaper and other rivals has unlimited ammo. Any machines that becomes rival in front of you gets it’s ammo for remaining guns.
All tick pods (except rivals) are limited. Area attacks of bigger machines are limited too.
Harvester salvo is unlimited, because this is it’s main only ranged attack.
Tanks MG is unlimited.
Hunters, depending on class, has various amount, increasing with higher class. It’s “arm” weapon is unlimited, but shoulder- and ass-mounted weaponry is finite.
I’d like to say, that Hounds have limited ammo for their guns pods, but… It’s too unfair.
TIcks… just ticks.
This is my vision for this concept. As Guerilla player, I say it would greatly decrease difficulty for me, because machines have quite a long life in this diff.
Any lower difficulties might get less or no occasions for this to happen, unless you spare effort to dry them up.
To summarize - interesting feature, that requites incredibly high quality fine tuning, that may or may not leave great impact on game play. This game where player should outwit machines, not outgun 'em.
Edit: been shoveling c**p on hard drive and found this. Let’s pretend It’s long battle and they are out of any ammunitions or attacks. Pretty dull, IMO.
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Same feature request topics merged.
//Mod
You also can’t actually fast travel during a battle, even if you have 1% health and no med kits, or revives. So, saying that fast traveling is somehow an advantage over the robots is not a valid argument.
Plus, medkits aside, even if we heal ourselves…one missile salvo that you cant escape, and your back down to 8% or even 1 or 2% health.
Not to mention that you have to empty almost an entire clip of fifty cal (which you can only cary so much of), before it actually breaks through the armor, and they’er shooting at you with unlimited fifty cal rounds, unlimited missiles, reinforcements, and a sonic pulse.
That’s another thing, why do machines have unlimited fuel?
Well, machines can’t Fast Travel at all, regardless the conditions. Players are still able to Fast Travel, outside of combat.
And for more arguments in favor of player:
- Player can fire his/hers weapon while moving. Machines have to stand still to fire their weapons.
- Player almost always outsmarts the machine. Only the greater number of machines is a factor which can give machines upper hand, sometimes.
- Player can scale vertical terrain with relative ease. Machines can’t at all, instead, they have to go around.
- After June '20 update, machines can’t aim properly anymore. Player aim is much better (usually).
- Players can disable machines weaponry, leaving machines to use only close combat. No matter how hard the machine hits you, you still can fully use your entire arsenal.
- Players can retreat into safehouses to escape machines. No machine can enter the safehouse area physically (e.g for melee attacks) but they can shoot at you, if they see you in there.
And there are many more.
If the idea is equality between player vs machines (both have limited ammo), many of the listed (if not all) should be equal between both as well. Else-ways, you’d be nerfing the machines even further than they already are and in turn, make players even more OP.
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Though there’s no need for equality between player and machines. how many PvE games are perfectly even? none because that’s the point of that kind of gamestyle. PvP games need to be equal, but PvE’s have always a-symetrical balances. The player has the quality the enemy the quantity. if the playfield would be even the game would be a lot less fun. I don’t think many here would enjoy the game still when every fight against any enemy from apo tank down to prototype runner feels like a reaper battle (or at least drags on like one)
Why there is an ‘imbalance’ with benefits to the player is because in a PvE game you’re the protagonist, the hero so to call it. And that means that there are enemys who’re weak that you can kill with ease and feel like a badass while there are stronger ones you can’t kill right away but later and THEN feel like a badass.
If you want to be beaten down again and again Generation zero just isn’t the game for you and instead changing the game into something it isn’t, you should play something else, like Dark souls.
I’ll resort to more harsh words, but I’m that eloquent in this language.
1st - Dark souls does not have guns and machines. On the contrary, we have a bite of DS in GZ.
2nd - As far as I heard, game was unforgiving at the launch and whole '19.
3rd - people complaining that “this will favor player more” are usually oldies, that got spanked hard in the early game’s life. And they liked it and asked for more.
Me personally and boyz got the game around May’20 and without any experience and knowledge we dived straight into Guerilla scaled. We got thrashed. Again and again, we got chased just like that maniac with a spoon. Now, after June’20 all these people (me included) can’t get that high and thrills, being in perpetual “blueballed” state.
Now, all I can do is roll down a highway to hell by bullying tanks and harvesters into dancing in beat of radios, horn and fireworks, just waiting for karma to catch up my arse…
I agree that those are true advantages for the players, and disadvantages for the machines. However, in my experience, I’ve never been able to “nerf” a 3 story tall, heavily armored, Rocket-launching, .50 cal wielding, hulking machine with backup. (With infinite ammo)
I also agree that they cant climb steep slopes, but a lot of times its not easy for the player either. Although, machines cant at all, so your not wrong.
A more strategic AI would allow the robots to outsmart the player, that way sheer numbers and better armor wouldn’t be the only defence for the robots.
You also said that machines cant follow you into safe houses. But they consistently glich into safe houses, and kill you. So although they were not originally intended to do so, they can nonetheless.
Also, im not saying that the players weapon shouldn’t for instance, jam if you use it too much, or, add a robot that can climb steep slopes. There are ways to rebalance the game, so limited ammo wouldn’t be a problem at all.
Not to mention, mathematically/logically speaking, the amount of ammo/ticks that hunters, harvesters, tanks, etc., can cary, would most likely crush them in real life.
Now you got my attention with that reply to Aesyle.
Can I ask to elaborate your playstyle, difficulty settingsn and gear you use?
About “nerfing” tank - it can’t shoot at you when shooty stuff isn’t there. In short - tear off it’s guns. Once you catch on flaws in AI, they become so boring to deal. Knowing what you do with quick approach you can neuter it within minute or two on Guerilla solo. Rivals and apocs would take longer due to former’s increased hull integrity and latter’s quirky armament. That, and tanks are as smart as clockwork.
Churhes are as good as bunkers - machines never been able to pass doorstep or inside (except ticks, but that’s special case). Other safehouses are either too deep or too remote to have machines at spawn point. The only “victims” are thin-walled houses and camps that are easy to approach. In case of houses it’s more problem of combination of the building itself and “spawn point too close to hot”.
As I said earlier, I’ll say it in other words: finite ammo for machines is an interesting concept for balancing, but it’s not worth to do in current state or in near future. Machines AI and game in general isn’t that advances to implement that feature.
So, the setting I have it on is just the default setting I believe. It’s not The easiest possible setting, but its not Guerilla. Play style depends on enemy, and the backup that comes with it. But mainly, I engage the smaller robots head-on with the experimentale shotgun. However, when it comes to larger machines (mainly the tanks) I will stay in cover such as Barnes, and shred with the .50 cal, rocket launcher, and other automatic weapons. Now, with a very good load out, its not impossible. But, you still run out of ammo, and have to switch to weaker ammo, or straight up weaker guns. That was my maine point when talking about limiting ammo.
Sometimes I can really get em good with the experimental shotgun, but then there’s the whole reloading thing, and if there’s no cover near by ya just gotta run and pray.
Kind of a side note- removing the guns is harder to do when they are actively shooting at you (obviously), but if you can get befind it with the experimental shot gun, you can do some level of damage quickly.
tl; dr - git gud.
I dunno, I’m being incorrigible hoarder. Before recycling station I had to do counter-intuitive tactics to help myself with “ammo-obesity”. Like dumping weak or slow-spending ammo on big targets, once they are in full control, like playing “peek-a-boo” with harvesters and tanks. That way I save up a lot of potential dmg/weight in more efficient ammo. BTW, shotgun have one of poorest dmg/weight ratios.
Second - you didn’t mention any expendable/consumable items.
If you say that limiting ammo for machines is “needed to balance” your problem with “out of ammo for kool stuff”, then it’s your problem that you came underprepared or being too rigid in your loadout. If by “weaker guns” you meant worse quality - it’s understandable that you can’t heave enough. If you meant “other that top tier”, then I have to say that guns in GZ are “just enough” across all the selection and each piece provide useful quirk to work with.
Anyways, that still didn’t convinced me that machines need ammo limits. Harvester nerf was justified in regard that it was more of outgunning waves after waves of hunters (with apoc harv dropping 4 of extra hard hunters, worst if you let it get to lvl4 rival), but other machines are moslty being annoying, than frightening. Right now, IMO, machines limitless ammo is a “meh” problem, comparing with machines issues in general that we exeriencing now, like buggy flamethrower or teargas penetrating through completely sealed walls or other surfaces.
And at last, but not least: if you wanna that machine can’t attack you because it is “suddenly” out of ammo then I’ll repeat - machine can’t shoot you if it hasn’t means to shoot at you, i.e. destroy it’s guns, then it is unable to shoot at you (refer at video in previous posts).
You make a good point there.
Also your right, i never said weather or not I use consumables like grenades. I do, relatively frequently.
Also, specifically, ammo limits for balancing wasn’t quite my point. It is just very unrealistic for one, and i was suggesting that if balance was the concern, then they tweak something else so that they felt that it was even.
To answer the statement about “cool gun ammo” - I don’t nessisarily only want to use my big guns, but (true story) when you have 60-70 rounds of .50 cal ammo, shoot all of it at one bot, and not only does it not die, but it has been shooting far more at you, and cant run out, it seems a bit OP (And impossible).
Also, if they made the machines smarter, in the sense that they used more strategy, then it would even the intelligence scale, thus, they wouldn’t be at a disadvantage, and ammo runs would be nessisary, without being unfair.
All machines have weak points (components) and once you’ve destroyed a component (it starts burning), machine takes minimal damage shooting at that destroyed component. Instead, you have to switch your target to another, intact component, to preserve your ammo while maximizing the damage.
Here, i don’t think the issue is how much ammo you spend, instead, the issue is what are you shooting at.
For example: tank.
If you shoot at the tank’s front armor plate, you can destroy the armor plate in few .50 cal shots. After that, there are two engines behind it (components) and two battery backs, below engines, which you can soot at for maximum damage to tank. Once those four are destroyed (1-2 shots per component to destroy the component), any additional shots into that part of the tank deals minimal damage to the tank.
Sure, tank goes down eventually but you’ll be wasting you ammo.
When i engage the tank, i spread out the targets i soot at:
- knee joint
- electrical box just above knee joint
- shoulder joint
- joint just below shoulder joint and next to tank’s main body (when facing tank, right side, just behind spotlight)
This takes care one leg of a tank but tank has 2nd leg too. And when i’m shooting at Apo tank on Guerilla, i have to go after the components in the 2nd leg as well.
To put it short:
blue sparks - hits to the components - maximum damage
big yellow sparks - hits to the armor plating - average damage
small yellow sparks - hits to the frame or destroyed component - minimal damage
Yes, mainly what I shoot at are components on the body of the tank- Spotlight, engines, battery packs, etc. Also go for legs, of course, but mostly I focus on the body components.
Option C is impossible, given the design of the game.
If you have X ammo on a military hunter, and one player walks in with an Experimental P90 (Or, even just the pre-placed 4 crown version), they can reasonably 2 or 3 tap it. So, they walk away with more ammo than they can possibly use. Possibly even walking away with the entire ammo stock of the hunter, as it might not have had time to get a shot off.
If you have another player fighting another (identical) military hunter, where their best gear is a 2 star AG4. They dump multiple mags, and probably a few grenades, into the hunter. Meanwhile, the hunter’s been burning it’s ammo on them, and has significantly less ammo remaining to be looted (it’s even possible the hunter has no ammo left after the encounter.)
So, the player who has the more difficult encounter receives almost nothing, while the player who had no challenge is richly rewarded.
On one hand, this would make endgame rival farming faster, since ammo wouldn’t be an issue, but it would harshly punish newer players as their times to kill are much higher, and that means they’d be getting less ammo off of downed machines.
Why would a player with a gun that shoots 7.62, need to loot .50 caliber ammo from a tank?