Bows: Limited ammo?

[ogrezilla]

what challenge did it add? You chose not to keep your characters stocked, but that was your own self imposed rule. Every one of your characters had access to unlimited arrows; you just chose not to use them.

 

Its not a big enough deal that I really would be upset or anything if they are "limited" like they were in the old games. It was easy enough to go get more. It just felt like tedium for the sake of "realism" even though I was carrying an unrealistic amount of arrows on my party full of dwarfs and elves and magic users. I still say either actually make them limited or make them unlimited; the middle ground where they are unlimited except I have to waste a few minutes occasionally just isn't good design. People who want smart resource management don't get it and people who don't want tedium do get it. Nobody wins. It's just barely enough to justify it with immersion.

 

Joker_and_here_we_go.gif

 

I have reasons to believe, this guy lives in his own world and shouldn't be treated seriously.

 

Check his intelectual gems from Food thread. I omit his mutually exclusive statements, where he has nothing against limited things (just walking out from partially exterminated location ruines his immershun)

 

ogrezilla, on 28 September 2012 - 08:18 PM, said:

If I run out of arrows in the middle of a dungeon, I should have to find more arrows or switch to a sword. But if fixing the problem of hunger or a lack of arrows simply means walking out of the dungeon and buying more food or arrows then you haven't added anything of value to the game, you have added tedium

 

Quote

 

But every single time I ran out of arrows I had the same reaction. "Oh, now I have to walk back to town." It didn't matter where I was or what I was doing. My punishment for running out of arrows was a walk back to town. It didn't add any difficulty to the game. It didn't add any strategy to my preparations. It wasted a few minutes of my time.

 

Quote

And yes, this goes for any resource management in the game. Healing potions, gold, carrying capacity, lockpicks, spells, food or brushing my teeth. If they want to require me to go to the bathroom every so often or risk my armor rusting, do it in a way that is satisfying or leave it out entirely.

I'm basically talking about the same situation proposed by Swayer in the cooldown thread yesterday. When your best course of action is to backtrack through completely safe areas back to camp, what is the actual value of that walk? In my opinion, there is none. I am not alone in that thought.

 

Again, my point is this. Tedium for the sake of tedium is boring and adds nothing to the game. Tedium itself is not a good enough deterrent to enforce smart play. It adds no difficulty or challenge to the game. Yet it is the only punishment for poor resource management in pretty much every IE game. Every resource is either readily available or easily replenished. You never need to make difficult choices. You never need to strategically use your resources. Because you can always just go get more. There's nothing inherently wrong with it, its just boring. And I'm of the opinion that they should either improve it by going one way or the other. Either make resource management more important, or make it less tedious. If they don't, whatever. Not a big deal. Just a little bit of tedium in the game.

 

PS: I stand by all of the statements you quoted. They aren't that hard to understand. They are just examples of what I said in the above paragraph. The last one being my poor attempt at bringing humor to the situation.

Edited October 3, 2012 by ogrezilla

[IcyDeadPeople]

Where is the fun managing how many arrows you carry, go craft them or go buy some all the time... Unless the damage per arrow is really high, don't limit the number, I think it's only slowing down the pace of the game to have to do amo management.

 

Whether ammo items have weight or not is a separate matter from whether the player should have infinity arrows.

 

Why stop with arrows, why not provide unlimited crossbow quarrels, arquebus rounds, throwing knives, spears, etc.? How about unlimited traps? I'd be interested to know where the heck the PC is getting all this magical infinite stuff. Does he have some sort of magic bag of holding? Is it really any different from providing the player with unlimited crafting supplies, or unlimited healing/mana potions, for example?

 

First, this is very unrealistic and breaks immersion for some of us. It makes archery feel a bit more like shooting a magic laser gun. It can also lead to balance issues, resulting in very weak arrows or cooldowns for archery abilities. And it's also a problem for those of us who enjoy role playing our characters, making choices based on what we think they would want to do. If I'm playing an archer, his bow and arrows are his most important items. He's going to want to learn how to craft them, perhaps improve their quality, explore the word and find crafting recipes or learn them from NPCs. He's going to want to find, steal, or save up and buy the best damn arrows he can get his hands on. And he won't waste them, he's going to make each shot count. It's hard to do this if he gets a magic dimensional portal in his arrow quiver with infinite arrows.

[ogrezilla]

Where is the fun managing how many arrows you carry, go craft them or go buy some all the time... Unless the damage per arrow is really high, don't limit the number, I think it's only slowing down the pace of the game to have to do amo management.

 

Whether ammo items have weight or not is a separate matter from whether the player should have infinity arrows.

 

Why stop with arrows, why not provide unlimited crossbow quarrels, arquebus rounds, throwing knives, spears, etc.? How about unlimited traps? I'd be interested to know where the heck the PC is getting all this magical infinite stuff. Does he have some sort of magic bag of holding? Is it really any different from providing the player with unlimited crafting supplies, or unlimited healing/mana potions, for example?

 

First, this is very unrealistic and breaks immersion for some of us. It makes archery feel a bit more like shooting a magic laser gun. It can also lead to balance issues, resulting in very weak arrows or cooldowns for archery abilities. And it's also a problem for those of us who enjoy role playing our characters, making choices based on what we think they would want to do. If I'm playing an archer, his bow and arrows are his most important items. He's going to want to learn how to craft them, perhaps improve their quality, explore the word and find crafting recipes or learn them from NPCs. He's going to want to find, steal, or save up and buy the best damn arrows he can get his hands on. And he won't waste them, he's going to make each shot count. It's hard to do this if he gets a magic dimensional portal in his arrow quiver with infinite arrows.

Things like throwing knives and axes at least cost a few more gold and took up a lot more inventory space. The arrows, bolts and bullets were all effectively unlimited; we just had the shopkeeper store them for us in HIS bag of unlimited holding. It had no influence on balance because there was never ever a reason to get into a fight without arrows. If you ran out it was because you simply forgot to check how many you had left. Had you noticed, there wouldn't have been some tough decision to make. There would have been a casual stroll back to town. The dungeon would wait exactly as it was. Every time.

 

If anything, giving me that reason to go back to town an extra time probably made me money since I got to empty my bags. Otherwise I would have just left a bunch of junk on the floor of the dungeon.

 

The breaking of immersion is really the only decent argument I have heard.

Edited October 3, 2012 by ogrezilla

[IcyDeadPeople]

Where is the fun managing how many arrows you carry, go craft them or go buy some all the time... Unless the damage per arrow is really high, don't limit the number, I think it's only slowing down the pace of the game to have to do amo management.

 

Whether ammo items have weight or not is a separate matter from whether the player should have infinity arrows.

 

Why stop with arrows, why not provide unlimited crossbow quarrels, arquebus rounds, throwing knives, spears, etc.? How about unlimited traps? I'd be interested to know where the heck the PC is getting all this magical infinite stuff. Does he have some sort of magic bag of holding? Is it really any different from providing the player with unlimited crafting supplies, or unlimited healing/mana potions, for example?

 

First, this is very unrealistic and breaks immersion for some of us. It makes archery feel a bit more like shooting a magic laser gun. It can also lead to balance issues, resulting in very weak arrows or cooldowns for archery abilities. And it's also a problem for those of us who enjoy role playing our characters, making choices based on what we think they would want to do. If I'm playing an archer, his bow and arrows are his most important items. He's going to want to learn how to craft them, perhaps improve their quality, explore the word and find crafting recipes or learn them from NPCs. He's going to want to find, steal, or save up and buy the best damn arrows he can get his hands on. And he won't waste them, he's going to make each shot count. It's hard to do this if he gets a magic dimensional portal in his arrow quiver with infinite arrows.

Things like throwing knives and axes at least cost a few more gold and took up a lot more inventory space. The arrows, bolts and bullets were all effectively unlimited; we just had the shopkeeper store them for us in HIS bag of unlimited holding.

 

I don't understand, so you are saying the problem is that you think arrows are too cheap and they don't weigh enough?

 

 

It had no influence on balance because there was never ever a reason to get into a fight without arrows. If you ran out it was because you simply forgot to check how many you had left. Had you noticed, there wouldn't have been some tough decision to make. There would have been a casual stroll back to town. The dungeon would wait exactly as it was. Every time.

 

If anything, giving me that reason to go back to town an extra time probably made me money since I got to empty my bags. Otherwise I would have just left a bunch of junk on the floor of the dungeon.

 

It seems we have different playing styles. I can't recall ever leaving a dungeon in a game because I ran out of arrows or didn't have enough inventory space. I just discard what I can't carry, or make do with another weapon until I can find some more arrows, or sneak and avoid enemies.

 

Often I complete a dungeon and retrieve much less than the sum of all the loot that was available, simply because I can't carry it all. I don't recall going back and forth to town just to carry stuff out of a dungeon, except perhaps in a pen and paper game, where the GM can make time fly.

 

The devs could wave a magic wand and get rid of all encumbrance, and you would no longer have to worry at all about inventory management or the tedium of walking back and forth to town, but wouldn't no encumbrance at all be boring?

 

In my case I haven't experienced that tedium of leaving a dungeon to go back to town and empty my packs of treasure, buy more arrows, etc., because I keep soldiering on and leave a lot of stuff behind that I can't carry.

Edited October 3, 2012 by IcyDeadPeople

[ogrezilla]

Where is the fun managing how many arrows you carry, go craft them or go buy some all the time... Unless the damage per arrow is really high, don't limit the number, I think it's only slowing down the pace of the game to have to do amo management.

 

Whether ammo items have weight or not is a separate matter from whether the player should have infinity arrows.

 

Why stop with arrows, why not provide unlimited crossbow quarrels, arquebus rounds, throwing knives, spears, etc.? How about unlimited traps? I'd be interested to know where the heck the PC is getting all this magical infinite stuff. Does he have some sort of magic bag of holding? Is it really any different from providing the player with unlimited crafting supplies, or unlimited healing/mana potions, for example?

 

First, this is very unrealistic and breaks immersion for some of us. It makes archery feel a bit more like shooting a magic laser gun. It can also lead to balance issues, resulting in very weak arrows or cooldowns for archery abilities. And it's also a problem for those of us who enjoy role playing our characters, making choices based on what we think they would want to do. If I'm playing an archer, his bow and arrows are his most important items. He's going to want to learn how to craft them, perhaps improve their quality, explore the word and find crafting recipes or learn them from NPCs. He's going to want to find, steal, or save up and buy the best damn arrows he can get his hands on. And he won't waste them, he's going to make each shot count. It's hard to do this if he gets a magic dimensional portal in his arrow quiver with infinite arrows.

Things like throwing knives and axes at least cost a few more gold and took up a lot more inventory space. The arrows, bolts and bullets were all effectively unlimited; we just had the shopkeeper store them for us in HIS bag of unlimited holding.

 

I don't understand, so you are saying the problem is that you think arrows are too cheap and they don't weigh enough?

I think they are at a meaningless middle ground where they are neither limited nor convenient. They add nothing to the game other than tedium. So yes, I would rather they actually make managing my ammunition meaningful. If they aren't going to do that, I'd rather they just make them unlimited because as is they are already essentially unlimited, I just have to waste a few minutes going back to my source of unlimited arrows every once in a while. The managing of ammunition in its current form adds no real value to the game. No extra challenge or strategy. Just tedium.

Edited October 3, 2012 by ogrezilla

[Amentep]

I think they are at a meaningless middle ground where they are neither limited nor convenient. They add nothing to the game other than tedium. So yes, I would rather they actually make managing my ammunition meaningful. If they aren't going to do that, I'd rather they just make them unlimited because as is they are already essentially unlimited, I just have to waste a few minutes going back to my source of unlimited arrows every once in a while. The managing of ammunition in its current form adds no real value to the game. No extra challenge or strategy. Just tedium.

 

With the caveat that I don't know how archery is going to be in PE...

 

I'd argue that the value in archery characters is whether you want them to be less useful or more useful in a combat situation.

 

There are scenarios in the IE games where the best strategy is to have all the characters attacking from a distance. To me the question with an archer was never "Awesome" with a bow & "Useless" with a short sword (or whatever) because the archer characters could still add value to a fight (unlike say a mage with a sling who tended to add very little to a fight).

 

So the management aspect of limited arrows - to my mind - is about where / when you want that character to be at their most useful - which isn't that dissimilar to when / where does your mage unleash the high level spells. And even with limited ammo in the IE games I never felt the need to hoard ammo (unlike spells). yes the walk back to might be tedious but it was generally not something that was needed; I usually had more than enough ammo for the situations or had utility by switching weapons.

[ogrezilla]

I think they are at a meaningless middle ground where they are neither limited nor convenient. They add nothing to the game other than tedium. So yes, I would rather they actually make managing my ammunition meaningful. If they aren't going to do that, I'd rather they just make them unlimited because as is they are already essentially unlimited, I just have to waste a few minutes going back to my source of unlimited arrows every once in a while. The managing of ammunition in its current form adds no real value to the game. No extra challenge or strategy. Just tedium.

 

With the caveat that I don't know how archery is going to be in PE...

 

I'd argue that the value in archery characters is whether you want them to be less useful or more useful in a combat situation.

 

There are scenarios in the IE games where the best strategy is to have all the characters attacking from a distance. To me the question with an archer was never "Awesome" with a bow & "Useless" with a short sword (or whatever) because the archer characters could still add value to a fight (unlike say a mage with a sling who tended to add very little to a fight).

 

So the management aspect of limited arrows - to my mind - is about where / when you want that character to be at their most useful - which isn't that dissimilar to when / where does your mage unleash the high level spells. And even with limited ammo in the IE games I never felt the need to hoard ammo (unlike spells). yes the walk back to might be tedious but it was generally not something that was needed; I usually had more than enough ammo for the situations or had utility by switching weapons.

ya, I don't disagree. It really was rare to run out of arrows at all. Then again, I tend to have a dedicated archer and I pretty never had my non-archers switch to bows, so they were all holding arrows in their ammo slots just for the archer. Its really such a minor issue that I'm not too worried about it either way.

 

My point though, is that I don't remember ever having to make that decision about where or when I wanted the archer to be most useful because I was never in danger of running out of arrows. I just chose to always be most useful and got more arrows when I needed them.

Edited October 3, 2012 by ogrezilla

[Archmage Silver]

One vote for limited ammo, IE style.

[Caerdon]

Limited ammo is completely pointless if you can carry 1000 arrows in a stack. Having to stop in a shop here and there won't make you a hardcore gamer. It's simply an annoyance.

 

I want limited ammo only if these conditions are met (and I hope they are):

• Bows deal realistic damage, i.e. one well-placed arrow takes an ordinary enemy out of the fight
  
• Arrow making is a skill
  
• Arrows are recoverable, broken or not
  

[Amentep]

ya, I don't disagree. It really was rare to run out of arrows at all. Then again, I tend to have a dedicated archer and I pretty never had my non-archers switch to bows, so they were all holding arrows in their ammo slots just for the archer. Its really such a minor issue that I'm not too worried about it either way.

 

My point though, is that I don't remember ever having to make that decision about where or when I wanted the archer to be most useful because I was never in danger of running out of arrows. I just chose to always be most useful and got more arrows when I needed them.

 

Right; I agree I never ran out of ammos so for the most part my dedicated archer (usually a thief) usually fired arrows. In certain occasions I went in for close combat by choice but rarely and even with limited ammo the few times I did run out I didn't feel the character was useless (which is different from Mages w/o spells and their resource management).

 

In fact the only problem I had was hording specialty arrows (and even then there were just some situations it was obvious to use them in).

 

I'm for fletching and recovering arrows though!

[1varangian]

There shouldn't even be a poll for this...

 

Running out of arrows is good. Smart archers train a secondary weapon... and *omg* it forces the player to manage resources intelligently.. thinking in a game! *omg* how oldskool.

 

/sarcasm

[Caerdon]

There shouldn't even be a poll for this...

 

Running out of arrows is good. Smart archers train a secondary weapon... and *omg* it forces the player to manage resources intelligently.. thinking in a game! *omg* how oldskool.

 

/sarcasm

 

So how much thinking does it take to buy lots of arrows when in town? "I need more arrows.... Aaaagh! My brain! It hurrrtsss!!"

[Archmage Silver]

There shouldn't even be a poll for this...

 

Running out of arrows is good. Smart archers train a secondary weapon... and *omg* it forces the player to manage resources intelligently.. thinking in a game! *omg* how oldskool.

 

/sarcasm

 

So how much thinking does it take to buy lots of arrows when in town? "I need more arrows.... Aaaagh! My brain! It hurrrtsss!!"

I'd like to limit the arrows to 40 per quiver. So if you want to buy more of them, you'd have to sacrifice some inventory space.

[jerf]

Could a fourth option be added to the poll, namely "Ordinary bows should have limited ammunition, but if the story allows, there can be ones with unlimited ammunition".

 

The point is that having limited ammunition is annoying, but having unlimited ammunition for ordinary bows is unrealistic and breaks immersion. This can be solved by having some e.g. magical bows for which there is an explanation that the amunition is replenished by magical means.

[ledroc]

Limit the ammo but extend the stacking to 100 or something. 20 is just not enough per stack

[Caerdon]

There shouldn't even be a poll for this...

 

Running out of arrows is good. Smart archers train a secondary weapon... and *omg* it forces the player to manage resources intelligently.. thinking in a game! *omg* how oldskool.

 

/sarcasm

 

So how much thinking does it take to buy lots of arrows when in town? "I need more arrows.... Aaaagh! My brain! It hurrrtsss!!"

I'd like to limit the arrows to 40 per quiver. So if you want to buy more of them, you'd have to sacrifice some inventory space.

 

Personally I'm hoping the inventory is only limited by weight, not the number of slots.

 

Limiting arrows the way it was done in BG adds nothing to realism. It only adds an appearance of realism. It's a face-lift. I'm all for realism, but I also like convenience - that's why I want realism done right.

 

Limit the ammo but extend the stacking to 100 or something. 20 is just not enough per stack

 

Why not just unlimited arrows, then? Or stacks of 500? 2000? 100000?

[Lt. Lizard]

Yes for limited from me.

 

While ordinary ammo never really affected anything in BG and BG2 as it was extremely cheap and plentiful, I liked having to check "do I actually have enough ammo?" before going to dungeon. And of course, crafting and enchanting ammo is a must.

 

Just... Allow more than 20 arrows/bolts/bullets per stack.

[DocDoomII]

Personally I'm hoping the inventory is only limited by weight, not the number of slots.

 

Limiting arrows the way it was done in BG adds nothing to realism. It only adds an appearance of realism. It's a face-lift. I'm all for realism, but I also like convenience - that's why I want realism done right.

 

That's why we were discussing in another topic about an inventory system with both weight and 'volume' parameter. But maybe without something graphical as 'slots'.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Limited ammo is completely pointless if you can carry 1000 arrows in a stack.

Unless they have significant mass. But yes, smaller stacks, I think, are a better idea. I wouldn't go higher than 40.

[Infinitron]

Could a fourth option be added to the poll, namely "Ordinary bows should have limited ammunition, but if the story allows, there can be ones with unlimited ammunition".

 

The point is that having limited ammunition is annoying, but having unlimited ammunition for ordinary bows is unrealistic and breaks immersion. This can be solved by having some e.g. magical bows for which there is an explanation that the amunition is replenished by magical means.

 

I think that goes without saying. We're talking about mundane bows here.

[GhostofAnakin]

I'd like to limit the arrows to 40 per quiver. So if you want to buy more of them, you'd have to sacrifice some inventory space.

 

That's how it should be. Limited number of arrows per quiver, and so if you want to basically horde an entire shop full of arrows, you'll have to sacrifice other items in your backpack to accommodate the extra arrows.

[Caerdon]

I'd like to limit the arrows to 40 per quiver. So if you want to buy more of them, you'd have to sacrifice some inventory space.

 

That's how it should be. Limited number of arrows per quiver, and so if you want to basically horde an entire shop full of arrows, you'll have to sacrifice other items in your backpack to accommodate the extra arrows.

 

So, how well did that work in BG, where stack size was 20? Answer: not well at all. Unless you were running with a 4+ archers squad, you still had enough arrows and enough inventory space, as long as you visited town every once in a while. Frankly, when I reminisce about BG and how wonderful game it was (probably my favourite IE game), I'm not thinking about the lovely stacks of 20 arrows.

[mikayel]

I'd rather talk about changing the way archery works in general but instead I'll say this: Limited ammo then include one of those "everlast" or "quiver of plenty" items after the game has progressed to the point that you're no longer coveting a masterwork longsword over a regular one. Or, have that be a perk in the crafting/enchanting system and let players who like building their own tools of convenience craft such items that do either mundane damage (same as a regular arrow) or perhaps even slightly less damage but they are unlimited.

 

Likewise, you can include weapons that create their own ammo thus negating your ability to use an awesome bow + awesome arrow combo and instead stick with whatever magical projectiles that weapon happens to shoot on its own.

 

I'm curious if throwing weapons will show up, and if they do, will they be useful or not?

 

"Fastest dart thrower in the west!"

[wormix]

That's how it should be. Limited number of arrows per quiver, and so if you want to basically horde an entire shop full of arrows, you'll have to sacrifice other items in your backpack to accommodate the extra arrows.

I don't get this mentality at all. Limited number of slots of inventory in the IE games was a flaw in the system, rather than a feature that should be kept around.

 

A single arrow should not take up the same amount of inventory space as a suit of armour. That's what encumbrance is for.

 

One of the cool things about arrows in some of the IE games were all the different effects you could find on different arrows, which was undermined by the fact that it took up so much of your inventory "space" to carry even a handful of arrows of a few types with you.

[Parallax]

Well, it's going to depend strongly on the gameplay specifics of how bows work, of course.

 

I'm OK with the idea of having highly limited arrows with powerful bows, so they are saved for the more difficult encounters or dangerous enemies. But that does make playing an archer character less attractive, unless they have other skills they can use when they are not using bows. It could work well for a ranger or rogue type class, where stealth, trap-making (and disarming), lockpicking and other combat skills mean they wouldn't have nothing to do until some Big Bad required an arrow between the eyes.

 

On the other hand, large stacks do make things alot easier. I know I used mods when playing Baldur's Gate because the small pool of arrows got on my nerves so. I was OK with Skyrim's archery system, initially, until it became massively overpowered at some point along the way, which made carrying what were essentially infinite stacks of otherwise limited ammo something of a gamebreaker (I think my current character is carrying around 1000+ arrows, not to mention a good few hundred crossbow bolts, and can kill most things with two or three shots from stealth).

 

I think gameplay balance should ultimately determine how it is going to work. Even infinite arrows could work, so long as ordinary archery attacks were not that powerful, and the most damaging attacks were limited in some way, like an assassination-style attack that could only be fired from stealth (and so at the start of the fight) or once per encounter.

 

Would it be possible to link bow power/arrow stack size to the difficulty setting? So having the limited/high power bows in Expert, the large stacks/less power in Normal and the Unlimited Arrows/Not that powerful in Easy? I don't know how workable that would be, but it's a possible way to let everyone have the archery gameplay they want.