Ever since the weapon slot changes and special ammo economy were explained I always had this small worry in the back of my mind: How do you keep sniper ammo if you're just going to pick off out of place enemies within their group? Because you have to run to the body I always figured sniping would be extremely hard in this sandbox. For one, I was wrong, but on the opposite side of my thoughts, shotguns are very easy to use in this sandbox because you're always within 10 metres of your ammo.
I think that this ammo economy needs to change, the crucible today is filled with mindless shotgun abusers, and I wish I had something else to list after that comma. Ammo scavenger perks, while amazing to initially discover have totally ruined the any viability of primary weapons in a loadout. Because people always have ammo for shotguns there is no need for people to have to use, say, an auto rifle. And because of that the crucible, especially (Believe it or not!) the comp playlist is because a hard to look at crutch-fest of who has an arm and class item scavenger perk and a full choke/slideshot shotgun. This isn't power that we get to show off because of our commitment to the game like you say the Ikelos Shotgun Morgeth strategy; it's decaying the versatility, colourfulness, range, unexpectedness and skill ceiling that you wanted to restore.
I suggest that scavenger perks be turned into something else, counterbalance perks would be brilliant because SMGs are very hard to utilise these days, and I suggest that nobody should start with special ammo, except those using two special weapons in which case one of those special weapons should start with 1 ammo. Getting the final blow on someone should award 1 special ammo and in the case of someone using two special weapons this should award 1 special ammo to the weapon they didn't get the kill with/the weapon that is not currently in their hands as to continue that 'walking on a tightrope' feeling that choice of loadout gives. The crucible is over-saturated with special ammo (in my opinion of course, it could very well be that all is fine and my opinion is awful) and it needs to be restored to where there's a healthy amount of it. All special ammo awarding should go straight to the player's magazine, dropping ammo on the floor for other people is skewing what people view as important in the heat of the moment, get the kill, use the ammo, instant gratification. This could also be the same with the heavy ammo brick that drops on death, to put that straight into the player's mag rather than them having to go get it could make for some very interesting gameplay turns.
I got a bit rambly so here is what I think the crucible should be, summarised:
- Primary weapons are not being ustilised like the name would suggest. Players should spawn without special ammo as to get more people using primary weapons.
- Special and even heavy ammo should not drop onto the floor, if you kill a person you should get one shot for your special weapon that goes straight to the mag when you get the killing blow. Sturm and Drang is a brilliant model of how this should work and feels like a good balance of risk vs reward.
- If a person decides to use two special weapons they should spawn with one shot/kill's-worth of ammo and getting a kill with that weapon should grant one shot to the other special weapon and so on, so that using two special weapons creates the feeling of walking on a tightrope and requires the mastery of two tools.
- Scavenger perks should be changed to counterbalance perks. SMGs are in an awful place concerning stability. The Harsh Truths is borderline unusable on console, the Misfit could feel incredible, sidearms, there are so many primary weapons that people would use if they had a bit more stability. Scavenger perks have destroyed - totally destroyed - any balance between primary and special weapons. Special weapons are made to be more powerful than primary weapons which is fine, but because of that ammo is supposed to be scarce, which it is not. Even if we only have a few bullets at any given time, a few bullets can always mean a few kills. There needs to be times where special weapons do not have ammo.
- The crucible is turning into a competition of who has scavenger perks and the best shotgun rather than a game mode that rewards skill like you intended. Countering shotguns is absolutely possible, but it isn't fun. I am not having fun, when I jump into parties, the people are not having fun. Right now in the crucible there are two things you can do: Play to counter shotguns, or, become part of the problem. The crucible needs to return to being a game mode that rewards skill.
I got a bit rambly again, but I'm sure that the point gets across.
Turned it into a poll just in case someone reads this and doesn't think the above is a good idea/that the current state of the crucible is fine. If you disagree that is totally fine, and I'd really like to read what you think of the crucible.
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I had the idea of giving each person a set amount of ammunition at the beginning of each game and that's what you get. Even if you start with max ammo for each weapon, that's say 20 shots with a shotgun. Once the low skill corner camping shotgun apes run out, they have to try to use a primary weapon, while the rest of us will have our ammo because we use it only when necessary for the most part. Obviously it's not the best idea but it's a start. An ammo economy needs to be set up to keep the game moving but without constantly rewarding bad plays with trades just so people can come back with another 2 shots to trade with. Shotgun spam combined with SBMM being turned off is leaving a very sour taste indeed.