Magazines, Ammunition, and Weapon Relevence

[Manuel Pineiro 22]

Ahoy all!

 

I am sort of new to the forums, but have played DayZ for a long long time.  Like pretty much everyone I am waiting with bated breath for the Alpha of DayZ Standalone.  I personally completely agree with Rocket's stance on completion and even though I was sad to see the AUG release 'window' pass I am pleased with every piece of information that has come out of the dev blogs so far.

 

With that in mind, my suggestion, or point of discussion that lead me to post this thread comes from the last two Dev Blogs.  Mainly this is in regards to Ammunition, Magazines, and reloading.

 

While playing in DayZ, I found many weapons seemed to have a 'level' associated with them.  What I mean is that a new survivor who finds say... a Winchester or Enfield is likely going to snatch it up because they need a weapon and they are not going to be picky.  However after finding say... an AKM or M4 at an airfield or on a dead survivor these types of weapons are immediately discarded.  Simply put... the militant style weapons are superior in every way to pump action shotguns or bolt action rifles.  They kill zombies as easily, they have larger magazines and often higher rates of fire.  This makes them the obvious choice to carry, as you never know when you might run into another hostile player.  Sure a pump action is fine for mercing the random Zed, but if you are stuck with a Remington shotgun and someone is down the road popping shots at you with a 'higher end' weapon you are crap out of luck.

 

What this means is, the longer you survive the more you 'progress' through the quality of weapons and leave a lot of them behind you in the dust to the point you no longer even want to collect the ammo or rifle/shotgun/pistol when you find it pretty much because you have better.  That there is my main point.  Not because it's not your style of weapon, but because you have something obviously -better-.  When I have a stash in a tent or a Ural, I will usually have dozens of guns.  I will find myself slowly discarding the shotguns and bolt actions until I have a truck full of automatic weapons and 'high end' sniper rifles.

 

This has been addressed slightly by Dean 'Rocket' in his Dev Blog when he talks about the loot tables and adding a lot more 'civilian' weapons and rarifying the military goods.  However I feel there is an angle to be pursued with the included reload/magazine feature presented by the DayZ SA team.

 

As it stands now, Rocket has shown us Ammunition 'boxes' which can be emptied out and then loaded into magazines, which you can then reload into your rifle.  This is outstanding and I appreciate the detail included with this simple feature.  He also in the SEP Dev Blog touched on maybe having to hold the magazine in your hand to add ammo into it, which I feel is needed.  A small and subtle difference between a bolt action rifle like the Lee Enfield and say an AK-47 is the detachable magazine.  Magazines allow for fast re-loading and are what make a lot of modern military weapons the efficient killing machine they are today.  However, the attached magazine and breach loading of older weapons at one time used to be huge speed loading features of the more venerable weapons like double barreled shotguns, winchesters, Lee Enfields, etc.  Before the time of detachable box magazines these 'easy' to reload weapons were superior to muzzle loaders and the like.  Detachable box magazines are only -better- than a quick reloading breach weapon if you have a lot of them.  Otherwise you suffer the problem of emptying a mag, then having to stop, open a box of ammo, then manually reload the magazine, then load it back into your weapon before finally being able ro re-engage.  A pump action shotgun on the other hand, can be quick fed shells at any point during a gun fight or zombie chase.  Reloading a shotgun goes from box of shells, directly into the shotgun.

 

This means weapons like Lee Enfields, Remingtons, Winchesters, etc.  Would have the benefit of being easier to logistically handle when looting and exploring than a magazine fed modern weapon.  In fact it would make them superior in many situations if you don't have the magazines to properly keep your modern rifle fed.  Not to mention the inventory space.  Sure a magazine of 30 rounds of .223 fills one slot in your inventory, what is a 50 round box of shells fills the same single slot?

 

The main point of my ramble here is to argue that the 'pain in the butt' feature of managing ammunition, loading magazines, and the like needs to be included even up to the point of having a 'click... click... click' reload animation of your character adding .223 rounds into his STANAG magazine.  It's time it takes to maintain the use of modern weapons that you can save by using older more utilitarian weapons.  It's one of those choices you make at camp when you look at your weapons and decide which to bring.  "Well I am going looting, do I want to bring four slots of magazines so I can carry that AK-47?  Or do I just grab a winchester/shotty/bolt action and a pocket full of bullets just in case?  Obviously 'rarity' of ammunition plays a large role as well, but in current DayZ shotguns still have 'magazines' of shells that take up far too much space in the inventory to be seriosuly considered over modern rifles.  8 Shells in the same slot a 30 round STANAG takes up is not an argument in the shotgun's favor at all, even if the shells are easier to come by.  To conclude this ramble a more visual examination of the point.

 

12 Gauge Shell Box 30 Rounds -> Straight to Weapon  (Possible Inventory Space 1 Slot Used)

.223 Ammunition Box 30 Rounds -> Load into x1 Magazines -> Load into Weapon  (Possible Inventory Slot  2 Slots Used Until reload)

 

Rocket mentioned magazines playing into the game economy because of this so I hope this is already an included point of contention by the team, but please we need features that keep the 'fun' weapons relevent so that we don't all have to use semi-full-auto rifles in the end game.  I loved the Remington 870 with flashlight... but there was an M4 CCO with Flashlight... poor shotgun got left in a field.

 

 

~Pineiro

Edited September 7, 2013 by Manuel Pineiro

[Bludy 324]

these decisions will give to the game  a lot of depth and adding factor that influence your inventory managment sounds good to me..i think that when you'll go to the barracks there will be more mags than boxes..so it won't be such a mess with those boxes..

[SalamanderAnder (DayZ) 1747]

Well, I agree with what you say, basically giving the less powerful weapons a slight advantage in that they tend to have internal magazines. But clearly as you said yourself, this was confirmed in the devblog released yesterday. So I guess I'm just a little confused as to why you would suggest a feature that already exists... but yeah. That's exactly how it works in the current dev build.

[Korsbaek 1778]

This was a great read. Rocket has already mentioned that military equipment would a lot rarer in the SA.

I'm also really hoping that finding an Enfield in the SA would be something that would make my day.

[Cormyr 39]

Good post and I would agree. Using ammo / magazines to balance the weapons is a great way to do it. Also balance them by making crazy powerful weapons more rare and/or difficult to get. From the looks of it, it has been done. Yay! Has there been any mention of a mosin-nagant being added? Also would like to see a SVT-40 (I think these has been brought up before, just adding my support for them).

Edited September 7, 2013 by Cormyr

[Manuel Pineiro 22]

Well, I agree with what you say, basically giving the less powerful weapons a slight advantage in that they tend to have internal magazines. But clearly as you said yourself, this was confirmed in the devblog released yesterday. So I guess I'm just a little confused as to why you would suggest a feature that already exists... but yeah. That's exactly how it works in the current dev build.

 

Well that is the point of the topic, it wasn't actually confirmed, the Dev Blogs just showed loading ammunition and he mentioned maybe adding an animation.  I feel this animation should be slow and realistic to make it more of a downside for semi-auto/auto box magazine fed weapons.  I spend some time at the range regularly and let me say it's more fun to shoot my pump Mossy 590 than it is my AR-15 a lot because I don't have to stop and load STANAGs, I can just throw a few in and shoot something.

 

I would hope that it follows that loading magazines would mean that there would be a 'lack' of it when it comes to shotguns etc, but if you look at DayZ the mod, shotguns still have 'magazines' in your inventory, they just don't -look- like magazines.  In current DayZ you still have to get a stack of say 8 shells to create a 'magazine' for the M1014 before you can load them into the shotgun.  I am creating this topic to discuss how important the 'correction' of that feature is to keeping those less modern weapons relevent.  So if a person can say... load shells directly from the box of shells to the shotgun in ones or twos, that makes the box of shells itself almost a magazine.  I suppose I am just stressing that I really feel they need to ensure that ammunition for bolt actions and shotguns needs to work more 'fluidly' than magazine fed weapons and their counterparts in the Mod.

[-Gews- 7443]

I suppose I am just stressing that I really feel they need to ensure that ammunition for bolt actions and shotguns needs to work more 'fluidly' than magazine fed weapons and their counterparts in the Mod.

 

And in addition to manual loading, it would be nice if the manual actions didn't automatically cycle themselves - perhaps some kind of player input should be required to cycle a bolt, lever or pump-action. Would be much fun if done correctly.

[JIJOK 49]

Just wonder about something, as SA says military weapons will be rare, so what if you find sniper rifle ? who stops you ? you find the sniper and just stay at the highest roof, the roof just can be accessed by ladder so just need check it from time to time

[mr_chabowski@live.co.uk 2416]

You'll fire off your huge stockpile of 3 bullets, then get eaten by Zeds while trying to climb down from the roof. ^_^

[Dchil 829]

The SMLE or enfield as it is know does actually have a detachable magazine. The thing about the enfield though is that it can be loaded several ways: One in the chamber, single loading into the magazine, stripper clips (needs two containing 5rds each iirc) and individual loaded mags.

[callsignBravo (DayZ) 323]

keep posting like that and you may get rockets baens...