Muzman on 25/11/2003 at 00:22
Good point. Unified ammo means you need to know very well how much of this stuff each weapon consumes. Some sort of reloading or active ammo distribution among weapons on the part of the player could have made universal ammo easy to grasp and interesting in an immersive way.
ZylonBane on 25/11/2003 at 00:31
I forgot to mention, another advantage of reloading in a unified-ammo environment is that even when you use up all the ammo with a given weapon, at least you have a few shots left in your other weapons.
An analogous situation would be in SS2 when you fire off all your bullets with the assault rifle, but then still have a few bullets loaded in the pistol.
Blackjack on 25/11/2003 at 01:38
Trouble is, all these comments are blindingly obvious to us, so the devs MUST have considered them all in detail and subsequently rejected them all. Exactly why is a mystery only they know. OK, they've tried to explain, but to me they're either just patently and pig-headedly wrong, or they're kidding themselves about the whole Xbox shenanigans. Maybe they think we're pig-headed, but all the pretty graphics in the world don't make up for real losses in gameplay such as those described above. DX, together with SS2, had some of the most sophisticated interfaces and sub-systems in gaming. These elements, which are largely restricted to PC games, were core to their feel and gameplay, not just distractions from the story and NPC interactions. Something serious has gone wrong in the design process of DX:IW.
I just hope Thief3 isn't headed in a similar direction, but I'm already guessing at equivalent 'streamlining' there, too.
Epos Nix on 25/11/2003 at 01:55
Quote:
Unified ammo and reloading are two entirely different design decisionsMaybe, but I still think the clunky controller interface was the culprit behind both of those decisions, even if the former could've been handled in many other ways that actually make sense.
(and thanks for calling me on my apparent confusion... it's hard getting thoughts across clearly after you've just woken up)
ZylonBane on 25/11/2003 at 02:20
How does every weapon using the same ammo have anything to do with the number of buttons on the controller?
Epos Nix on 25/11/2003 at 02:41
Managing an inventory with just a controller is bad enough I assume. Managing an inventory plus a dozen ammo types would be that much worse. They could've just had ammo bypass the inventory and go to some invisible cache area, but that would've made too much sense I suppose.
TheDorkProject on 25/11/2003 at 02:44
It's not so much the controller that is to blame, though that is certainly part of it.
The real culprit is the tiny brains of console fans! And Eidos' desire to put out games that won't daunt them with complexity!
nimbus on 25/11/2003 at 03:44
Quote:
Originally posted by Epos Nix No. They made the decision based on ONE reason: the Xbox controller has 10 buttons? Let's see: jump, crouch, fire, alt fire, 'use', start, select and 3 inventory screens... no room for reload there.
I can almost guarantee you that had there been no Xbox port, or had they not gone about porting the game to the Xbox in the fashion that they did, there would most certainly be multiple types of ammo and reloading. They are merely justifying the inclusion of unified ammo based on arbitrary reasons to save face and not admit that the Xbox was the higher priority platform.
Well, you're lucky then, the Xbox controller has twelve buttons, just enough for reload AND lean :thumb:
Get over it guys, it's obvious the Xbox was responsible for some things being changed, but you keep grasping at the same old straws. Console games HAVE reloading, console games HAVE multiple ammo types, some console games EVEN HAVE leaning...this is not speculation here, it's already been done, okay? The reason for this is NOT the limitations of the console (although the console does have limitations). It's easy to blame the Xbox for everything when some of those arguments are valid, but this particular one just isn't.
ZylonBane on 25/11/2003 at 04:12
Quote:
Originally posted by Epos Nix Managing an inventory with just a controller is bad enough I assume. Managing an inventory plus a dozen ammo types would be that much worse.
Ummm... have you played Deus Ex? Ammo isn't considered an inventory item. It's just "there".
You know what else sucks about universal ammo? No multiple ammo types per weapon. We got the cliched alt-fire thing instead.
Azal on 25/11/2003 at 04:31
Quote:
Originally posted by ZylonBane So at the very least ISA should have implemented two or three basic classes of ammo, like ballistic/energy/biological, or whatever. This would have been orders of magnitude easier to playbalance and still retained some strategy in weapon use.
Which is exactly what I initially thought ISA was talking about when they first mentioned consolidating the ammo types.
