Cocytus Succeeder
Posts: 2297
Joined: Saturday, 14th April 2012, 21:35
Ranged weapons: alternative to ammo management?
- "To level up a skill, you need to exercise it with appropriate actions"
- "To butcher a corpse, you need a sharp tool (weapon) in your hands"
- Inventory weight limits
Let us examine a feature which everyone takes for granted and see what its mechanical contributions are: ranged ammunition. Years ago, I'd do a ritual of reading my enchant weapon scrolls while holding increasingly bigger stacks of arrows/bolts just to consolidate them into one inventory slot. Ammo enchantment level got cut, as did elemental ammo more recently. What does the current ammo situation bring to the gameplay table? I will use 2 bullet point styles to separate points about mundane vs special ammo.
- You should poke popcorn with melee weapon because not enough ammo to shoot everything
- Ammo you aren't skilled at using fill the 'junk' slot in item generation
- If it doesn't mulch, a single piece of ammo is highly likely to jam a door open
- Leaving behind a lot of fired ammo gives some incentive to return if you had to flee a location
- A couple spells consume ammo to act as an external limiter
> Special ammo act as powerful 'consumables' requiring skill and (depending on brand) a high chance of re-use
> Enemy use of 'consumables' is most likely to fall into these special ammo shots over wands or potions
> Large rock throwing enemies can be 'tanked' from afar: much easier to retreat out of sight while waiting for them to deplete ammo than to realise halfway across that they got a good damage roll
For the moment, let's set aside special ammo (including large rocks) and just think about mundane ammo. Which of the above do we care about? I think the incentive to learn some melee and Sandblast/StS limiters are all that we want. Item generation can find something else to fill the 'junk' slots or just generate nothingness. Are doors so OP against ranged enemies that jamming them open is an important balance feature? Is the nagging feeling of wanting to pick up your arrows relevant? Maybe we can re-design Sandblast/StS too.
Let us continue to not think of special ammo for now. Is there an alternate mechanic that could replace mundane ammo? I propose the following system for ranged launchers:
- If an enemy is in melee range to you, -ACC and -Attack Speed if you use a ranged launcher even if you're not shooting that melee-range target
- Bottomless quiver of unlimited mundane sling bulets, needles, arrows and bolts
-- Even enemies get infinite mundane ammo if they have a launcher
- Always mulches
Possible objection: "hyperoptimal player centaur can now infinite kite. Even if 'infinite ammo' was tactically limited somehow, being freed of strategic scarcity frees you to kite forever"
This is exactly what a CeCj playstyle would be like: kite while throwing nukes, rest upstairs, resume. It's something to think about. Besides, Boots of Running have been devalued with the additoin of more and more fast monsters in recent times.
Now let's add special ammo to our system:
- Sits in inventory (unlike mundane ammo)
- Always mulches
- Similar or smaller stack sizes to present when generated
Where does throwing come in?
- Infinite stones (perhaps with changes to damage formulae since slings will always use bullets)
- Kobolds/goblins with 3 stones just don't get any
- Finite tomahawks, javelins, large rocks