Does it really bother anyone else to pick up ammo/health when not needed?

[schizoid26]

It really bothers me when say I have 48 shells and no backpack, to pick up a box of shells. Even if I was doing well in a level I will reload a save (within reason) to before I picked up the extraneous shells.

[vdgg]

The last few years tendency on these forums (at least the opinions I've read) is that it is bad mapping, and it bothers everyone (I didn't notice contrary opinions). For me designing unavoidable pickups is OK and sometimes even good (involving some strategy) and picking these up... I prefer to "waste" health than ammo, but mostly it is not harmful (there is plenty of health and ammo elsewhere).

[HorrorMovieRei]

Yes, and although I don't do this often, I do quickload to try and avoid it sometimes. As far as video games in general go I don't like to squander resources unless extremely necessary, to the point where I usually beat the game without using any of the cool items I hoarded along the ride.

[Spectre01]

Forced pickups like ammo or health aren't cool. Especially if you're near max stats and need to grab a Megasphere/Soulsphere to trigger an encounter and the linedefs are close enough to make you grab it.

Edited June 4, 2017 by Spectre01

[galileo31dos01]

Not a fan of that, it doesn't bother me when the maps are easy and you can have health/ammo to burn, or, say you just inevitably pistol started a map and along the way you grab forced pickups that aren't actually "forced" because you always need them. Sometimes I find annoying when you have more than one box of X ammo overlapped, because you only see one box but you end up being forced to grab more than you need. Oh and, when you are 197% health and 194% armor and there is a mandatory megasphere to trigger a mandatory encounter, umm heh...

[Tracer]

When I have 90 shells and I see a box of shells...yeah, I get annoyed.

[schizoid26]

2 hours ago, HorrorMovieGuy said:

Yes, and although I don't do this often, I do quickload to try and avoid it sometimes. As far as video games in general go I don't like to squander resources unless extremely necessary, to the point where I usually beat the game without using any of the cool items I hoarded along the ride.

I do the same thing. My brother used to get so annoyed that I would never use the BFG, lol.

[Koko Ricky]

It sucks when it's a map that is intentionally scarce with ammo drops. Otherwise, not a big deal. But one thing I don't care much for is when mappers throw powerups in places that the player cannot avoid, like a switch that has to be accessed. I should have the option to grab the powerup rather than it being unavoidable.

[Greyenko]

It feels really wasteful when you pick up a bunch of shells when you only need 2 more to fit the full amount. especially if ammo is very scarce for that weapon such as the BFG or plasma gun.

[GarrettChan]

Definitely bothered me for most of the time. If I'm doing a casual play, I must leave them there and go back and pick them up. If you do some speedrunning, probably it will fix this for you ;)

 

There are more types of bother for me. For example:

1. Shell count is not an even number.

2. Cell count is not a (20*N) number.

3. Pickup an Armor with >=50 MegaArmor left.

[riderr3]

I like some kinds of force pickups.

As example, some of my ideas:
-After picking an chainsaw/berserk, the ambush with demons is opens.
-Same with inviso sphere and many chaingunners around player somewhere higher. They starts to fight with each other and that's fun.
-Same with invul sphere and hordes of enemies which blocks player from all sides. Player needs to clear out the place and get out, until effect is lasts.

[Crusader No Regret]

If I'm playing with saves, I will reload if I pick up ammo or health and waste more than a token amount.   Picking up Medikits if above 77% or Stimpacks above 91% is an automatic reload for me.  I insist on full value from my ammo pickups and only grab soulspheres at exactly 100%.  I also don't like forced health/armor bonuses if below 100 in the corresponding stat.  Berserk, armor, and Megaspheres I have my own personal threshold for; these are less obsessive.

 

So I'm rather extreme.  It's part of the reason I'm not into slaughter maps.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Aside from large cells and RL ammo nope. Doesn't help that most maps are happy with giving you a backpack so you never need to care about ammo.

[Bauul]

20 hours ago, Spectre01 said:

Forced pickups like ammo or health aren't cool. Especially if you're near max stats and need to grab a Megasphere/Soulsphere to trigger an encounter and the linedefs are close enough to make you grab it.

While I agree, to play Devil's Advocate: this isn't always a bad thing. If a mapper has designed an encounter around a player necessarily having 200/200 health/armour, then it makes sense to put an unavoidable megasphere there. It's a leveller: everyone goes into the encounter on max.

 

If the megasphere was optional, there's the possibility the player had high enough health before the encounter that they can survive without, and then pick up the megasphere. That means they go into the next section on 200/200 when the mapper presumed they'd be lower thanks to the encounter. This could totally screw with the balance of the map, and isn't a desired situation.

[Dragonfly]

@HorrorMovieGuy nailed it 100% exactly how I feel.

[Gez]

Yeah, basically.

 

When I don't want to bother having to dodge items, I end up just using ZDoom's "unlimited pickup" mode and then no longer having to worry about ammo. Just pick them up all the time! Of course I end up on the last level with several dozen thousands of every type of ammo, but hey.

 

I'm still annoyed about picking up armor bonuses before getting an armor, or picking up health bonuses when not at 100% health.

[Roofi]

It doesn't bother me when there are plenty ammo to kill all monsters. Same, I find it amusing when the ammunition is placed randomly in a map, the map 08 of hr2 is the best example in my mind. There are so many box of shells that it becomes kinda ridiculous

 

 

[42PercentHealth]

Yes! I'm very used to playing in such a way to maximize my resource economy. I don't go so far as to reload if I picked up something I don't need or can't make full use of, but I often will run up to a group of mancubi or arachnotrons to make sure that every SSG pellet hits something, for example -- even though this frequently costs me some health. Just an OCD I guess...

[Remilia Scarlet]

Usually, though it depends on the situation.  If it's a map that has way more ammo than what's needed, I won't mind.  But in maps where the ammo is more closely balanced (which is the kind of map I enjoy more anyway), it'll bother me a lot more.

 

In general I try to pick up ammo only if it'll fully benefit me, and make exceptions only for ammo clips or four shells.  For this reason, I usually place ammo and health on the sides of my maps, so I'm less likely to pick them up by accident.

[ShoDemo]

If there is a Soulsphere or a Megasphere in the field, I find it annoying picking it up by accident. So, I am careful with those.

Same with powerful weapon ammo, like rockets and cells. I use my cells from time to time, when I am in need of heavy damage, but with my rockets I can be really cautious. It is not rare for me to finish a wad with more than 50 rockets, because the BFG played its part perfectly at the time.

 

Finally, when I see shotgun shells or bullets, I pick them up without a second thought, especially when they are ammo boxes (I don't pick those, only if the overall ammo is scarce). There is just something about having 100 shells, that pleases me (like eating chocolate). Then, as my profile name implies, what follows is <<Shotgun Demolition>>, until my shotgun runs out of shells, in which case, I have been storing bullets the entire time, for my chaingun, so the demons won't get the satisfaction of killing me. 

[Nine Inch Heels]

It depends on the map in question as well as how it is designed.

 

If we're gonna talk maps with good ammo balance, there usually is no way to pick up something on accident to then waste a part of it, because if ammo balance is good, you're ideally never going to be maxed out, unless the author specifically wants for that happen. When health is tight, you can more or less apply the same principle.

 

That aside, placing pickups in a way that they can actually impede the player's movement (megaspheres come to mind, because you'll pick them up no matter what), can add to the challenge of an encounter that is going to last for a bit. The same thing can be said about placing items inconveniently on purpose. Slaughter maps for example employ both methods at times.

 

Item placement should serve a purpose as much as monster placement does. In my opinion, item placement is done right when it adds to the gameplay/difficulty of the situation in question. If you put everything in the way of the player, or to the sides, without there being a gameplay-relevant purpose for this, you've done it wrong from my point of view.

 

Here's a scenario I made some time ago, in which I employ different methods of item placement for different reasons:

 

This picture shows a place in which a lengthy encounter takes place... You slay about 400 things just in that room. On UV it has 2 megaspheres, which are placed "inconveniently convenient", so the player has something to keep in mind when dodging/movind around. The medkits are placed on the sides, and when things get going, there will be revenants on these "steps" next to the med-kits, so grabbing them may come with an inherent risk, while they also force you into redirecting your fire, since all you have for this arena is the rocket-launcher. Then you see the ammo boxes, which are placed conveniently, because you can't afford to run out of rockets for extended periods of time in there. I have provided enough rockets to make sure that wasting some on pick-up is not an issue at all. By no means do I want to put myself on a pedestral here by showing this, I simply wanted to put it up here to make a point about what I think is a reasonable thought process behind item-placement.

 

Other than that, forcing players into pickups is also a viable way of limiting resources available. If an encounter is designed with a limitation of 200/200 in mind, why would the author allow to leave the megasphere at the entrance for later? That doesn't make any sense at all.

[rodster]

Yes, definitely! I do it even when I know that there is more than enough ammo! Because it just feels like I'm wasting ammonution. Although, I think it's kinda funny, because after all it's just a video game, it's not like I'm wasting water etc... :D

[Megalyth]

I try to avoid picking up items that I don't need yet, but if it's forced then there's usually a good reason. In my own maps, I tend to scatter small pickups around so that the player can grab stuff as needed. Bigger items are placed where it makes sense to have them available, but not where a player might run over them by accident. I'm always refining this process in my maps.

[Bashe]

I generally dislike forced pickups, especially when I'm near the cap of the respective item's usefulness. It's not too bad for little pickups, but large health pickups and armor especially drive me up the wall.

 

No bueno

[Fonze]

Yeah it definitely helps to be conscious of the type of forced pickup; a GA like that is terrible, but I agree with the notion from others that sometimes forced pickups are important to ensure the player is at least at x resources before entering the next area, while also not trivializing the next area with an extra available pickup. That pickup could just not be present at all and what's so bad about maxing out a resource? :) Also, forced blur spheres have the potential for a good comedic effect.

[Megalyth]

Being forced to pick up a green armor when you still have a decent amount of blue armor is a lame way of enforcing challenge. It's like someone forcing you at gun-point to ride a bicycle during a muscle car drag race.

[kb1]

It bothered me so much that I added an option to my port to ignore the pickup if it was already maxed. It would still allow pickup of a shell box when you had 99 shells, though. This, of course, caused a new issue: You can't always get 100% items. Don't know how to fix that one, though. There's always something, isn't there?

[baja blast rd.]

6 hours ago, Bashe said:

I generally dislike forced pickups, especially when I'm near the cap of the respective item's usefulness. It's not too bad for little pickups, but large health pickups and armor especially drive me up the wall.

 

No bueno

 

[GarrettChan]

42 minutes ago, rdwpa said:

(don't want to quote the picture)

This is funny. Probably the two choices should be "Yes" and "(I have) No (choice)". Also, this reminds me there a joke mod or whatever about Wolf3D, in which when you shoot a Nazi, it asks you "Is it good to shoot a Nazi?".

[Ichor]

That soulsphere at the end of the lost soul corridor in map 9 always bothered me, since there's no way to not get it if you want to hit that switch for the rocket launcher.