[Inspector Lagomorf]

Burnett, on 26 September 2012 - 06:59 AM, said:

I used RPG almost exclusively on bosses and semi-bosses and its ammo was the right amount for those encounters.

Particularly since some of the later episodes were likely to have large amounts of Battlelord Jr's on some of the higher difficulties. Ammo management is deliberately removed as a factor in Duke Nukem 3D; you will almost always have more ammunition than you will ever need. Presumably this is because the designers assumed the average player would be horridly inaccurate with their weapons.

[necroslut]

Burnett, on 26 September 2012 - 06:59 AM, said:

I used RPG almost exclusively on bosses and semi-bosses and its ammo was the right amount for those encounters.

While I agree that the amount you have is pretty suitable for boss battles, If you use the RPG for lesser enemies you'll still have enough for bosses as you can easily take out whole groups with one rocket, and there are usually more before bigger battles as well as around the levels and in secret areas. But maybe it's the other way around and it's the hitscan weapons that carry too little ammo, they certainly do if you're going to kill bosses with it.
It seems they just carried this limit over from Doom and to me it feels like one of the lesser thought out aspects of D3D, but it's not really a big deal. I'm not saying I'd want to turn boss battles into running back and forth between ammo boxes like in DNF either.

[uh . . . .]

Maybe the 50 ammo count was accounted for Damn I'm Good playthroughs? But then again I don't see why you just couldn't kill them with the RPG to begin with. . . .

[Micky C]

What everyone seems to be forgetting is that Duke Nukem is all about over the top weapons and blowing shit up. I love the idea of being able to go around and blow up half a level's worth of enemies with an explosive without having to give much thought to having immediately run out of ammo or reloading.

Edit: It's not like they fill you up with RPG ammo all the time, the ammo is fairly spread out. But if you save it up and find all the secrets then I think it's a great reward to be able to blow up 100 bad guys.

[Kathy]

Either way, the weapon count in Duke3d didn't limit gameplay, only somewhat enhanced it while DNF's limit made affected gameplay at its core especially during boss encounters since refill ammo mechanic was used for every boss fight.

[necroslut]

Micky C, on 26 September 2012 - 06:25 PM, said:

What everyone seems to be forgetting is that Duke Nukem is all about over the top weapons and blowing shit up. I love the idea of being able to go around and blow up half a level's worth of enemies with an explosive without having to give much thought to having immediately run out of ammo or reloading.

I still think it's a bit problematic that you can carry as much ammo for the RPG as for the shotgun, in addition to 50 pipebombs and 50 shrinker blasts (which can even one-hit a battlelord sentry), that's enough to easily kill waaaay more than "half a level's worth of enemies". While on the other hand the expander barely has enough ammo to take out a handful of enemies, and it doesn't even do it quickly.
It doesn't really limit gameplay the way a really low ammo limit would, but you have to sort of play around it not to damage the balance I think. I have to admit I didn't consider the Damn I'm Good aspect though, I rarely play it since I don't like respawning enemies.
As for the "all about over the top weapons" part, I have to disagree. That's part of it, but not nearly all of it. It's not Serious Sam, or I wouldn't be here.

[Micky C]

Yeah the weapons aren't 100% balanced, but people still seem to have enough fun in dukematch and so on. You shouldn't really bring up the expander as an argument though, it was hacked in as a sort of gimmick weapon in afterthought so they could advertise new weapons in the atomic edition, and therefore didn't have too much thought put into it.

[MetHy]

In Duke3D the expander is great in Damn I'm good, it becomes a very tactical weapon It almost makes me wish the first 3 episodes had ammo for it.

In deatmatch it's one of the strongest and most fucking annoying weapon though, if you play with auto-aim on that is. It's hitscan and can snipe you from the other side of the map, while missing up with your vision and doing quite a lot of damage.

[necroslut]

Micky C, on 27 September 2012 - 04:25 AM, said:

Yeah the weapons aren't 100% balanced, but people still seem to have enough fun in dukematch and so on. You shouldn't really bring up the expander as an argument though, it was hacked in as a sort of gimmick weapon in afterthought so they could advertise new weapons in the atomic edition, and therefore didn't have too much thought put into it.

I think the weapons are very balanced, except for the ammo limits. I brought up the expander because that's the worst example (and also because I think it's an interesting weapon that is held back because of it), but I'd say other weapons like the ripper are affected too.
It's much less of a problem in Dukematch though, as you rarely live long enough to use all that ammo.

[dnskill]

Hey, sorry to update this thread, but I don't have anywhere else to put this, skip to 2:34

[Micky C]

That's really old and has been posted here before.

[dnskill]

Oh okay, well sorry to not know that. It was new to me.

[Soap DX]

If you think about Duke Nukem being inspired by those 80's movies bad asses, I think it would be cool if the next game has a high ammo count, of course still holding some balance.
"cause in those movies the heroes rarely ran out of ammo. ok not the best argument, but hey why not.

The alternative to ammo capacity is reload time, if both are tweaked properly it makes things more fun. Running back and forward to the resupply crates would have been better probably if it was cut down by half or something. Speaking of the RPG.

We have to remember multiplayer probably had a big say in the DNF ammo capacity and overall balance.

[necroslut]

Soap DX, on 30 September 2012 - 07:54 AM, said:

If you think about Duke Nukem being inspired by those 80's movies bad asses, I think it would be cool if the next game has a high ammo count, of course still holding some balance.
"cause in those movies the heroes rarely ran out of ammo. ok not the best argument, but hey why not.

The alternative to ammo capacity is reload time, if both are tweaked properly it makes things more fun. Running back and forward to the resupply crates would have been better probably if it was cut down by half or something. Speaking of the RPG.

We have to remember multiplayer probably had a big say in the DNF ammo capacity and overall balance.

They did, occasionaly. But when they did, they didn't run back to the supply crate, they picked up another gun, or beat the guys to death with their fists/knives/doors/cars/whatever was around. That's one feature I really liked in DNF, being able to pick up trash cans etc and throw them on enemies. Too bad you never really had any use for it except for in the beginning of the game (because ammo pickups/refills were 100%) and it wasn's there in multiplayer.
Another way to do it is to have high carrying capacity, but low availability, so the only way you'll have lots of ammo is if you use it sparingly.

[OpenMaw]

Soap DX, on 30 September 2012 - 07:54 AM, said:

We have to remember multiplayer probably had a big say in the DNF ammo capacity and overall balance.

That doesn't exactly bare out. The multiplayer came along much later in the development.

[Soap DX]

Commando Nukem, on 07 November 2012 - 04:05 AM, said:

That doesn't exactly bare out. The multiplayer came along much later in the development.

True, but doesn't mean they didn't touch single player in any way.
They did change Duke's Model, lets say they wanted to do that for Multiplayer... are they not going to do it for single player?

And then again, maybe ammo capacity was already considered for Multiplayer while being made in single player. truth is we where not there, so we really don't know.

Just food for thought.

[OpenMaw]

Soap DX, on 07 November 2012 - 09:12 AM, said:

True, but doesn't mean they didn't touch single player in any way.
They did change Duke's Model, lets say they wanted to do that for Multiplayer... are they not going to do it for single player?

And then again, maybe ammo capacity was already considered for Multiplayer while being made in single player. truth is we where not there, so we really don't know.

Just food for thought.

The multiplayer was built by an entirely different group after the single player was finished and locked. All the graphical changes done by Gearbox were handled before the multiplayer was really started. As far as the ammo caps goes, that and coding in general for both single and multiplayer are handled separately.

[----]

MrGlasses, on 25 September 2012 - 04:15 AM, said:

I totally agree with Randy about DNF, the game had ... good pacing ...

Why do you have a different DNF game than me?

[Inspector Lagomorf]

fuegerstef, on 09 November 2012 - 05:01 AM, said:

Why do you have a different DNF game than me?

The post you referenced was quite old, but agreeing with Randy about DNF's pacing is rather like agreeing with Baghdad Bob that the U.S. troops are fleeing for the hills.

[OpenMaw]

Achenar, on 13 November 2012 - 08:51 AM, said:

The post you referenced was quite old, but agreeing with Randy about DNF's pacing is rather like agreeing with Baghdad Bob that the U.S. troops are fleeing for the hills.

Man, that guy was funny.