"Old" Doomers, how did you get used to reloadable weapons?

[Nevander]

Reloading guns outside of Doom is normal to me. Reloading guns IN Doom with mods, I can't stand it.

[Skeletonpatch]

I don't remember reloading ever bothering me, I played tons of Return to Castle Wolfenstein and that is probably the first game I remember playing that had reloading. Whether it is there or not doesn't bother me, and in most cases it adds to the strategy required.

 

One thing about reloading that only really bothers me when I think about it (but I never think about it while playing a game) is how unrealistic it actually is in most games. That's the whole point, right? To make it more realistic? I have never seen a game where bullets are ever physically inserted into a magazine. When you remove a mag that still contains bullets from a weapon, wouldn't you expect to see player character empty the mag into a container or maybe refill the mag? In most games the player character just drops the mag on the ground without emptying it first yet the bullets it still contains magically teleport into the new mag. This is most obvious in third-person shooters, Uncharted for example, where you can fully see the character throw the mag on the ground yet still retains the bullets it contained. Not to mention that in many games the ammo pickups are often random and rarely contain the maximum number of bullets and you are never shown to be inserting more into it. Though I'm sure some will argue that it is done off screen, but if that be the case then how does the player grab and insert more bullets into the mag with only one hand while running, without ever putting the gun down?

 

This is only something that bugs me when I think about it outside of playing a game, and I understand that if all games depicted reloading more realistically it probably would become a significant chore if fast-paced action is what the game is trying to accomplish.

[Cipher]

7 hours ago, Skeletonpatch said:

I don't remember reloading ever bothering me, I played tons of Return to Castle Wolfenstein and that is probably the first game I remember playing that had reloading. Whether it is there or not doesn't bother me, and in most cases it adds to the strategy required.

 

One thing about reloading that only really bothers me when I think about it (but I never think about it while playing a game) is how unrealistic it actually is in most games. That's the whole point, right? To make it more realistic? I have never seen a game where bullets are ever physically inserted into a magazine. When you remove a mag that still contains bullets from a weapon, wouldn't you expect to see player character empty the mag into a container or maybe refill the mag? In most games the player character just drops the mag on the ground without emptying it first yet the bullets it still contains magically teleport into the new mag. This is most obvious in third-person shooters, Uncharted for example, where you can fully see the character throw the mag on the ground yet still retains the bullets it contained. Not to mention that in many games the ammo pickups are often random and rarely contain the maximum number of bullets and you are never shown to be inserting more into it. Though I'm sure some will argue that it is done off screen, but if that be the case then how does the player grab and insert more bullets into the mag with only one hand while running, without ever putting the gun down?

 

This is only something that bugs me when I think about it outside of playing a game, and I understand that if all games depicted reloading more realistically it probably would become a significant chore if fast-paced action is what the game is trying to accomplish.

This is one of the things, among many, that really bothers me about the selective (but much-touted) realism of modern shooters. For every part of the aesthetic that reaches for nitty-gritty realism, most of the basic mechanics, right down to the idea of a single person taking multiple shots and running into hails of bullets like a one-man army, is completely, cartoonishly absurd.

 

There are other things that bother me about them, though -- like the mixture of realistic aesthetics with completely sanitized violence. The brazenly off-the-wall fantasy of Doom sits a lot better with me than war porn where combat is visually realistic while the consequences of it are not.

 

As far as reloading mechanics, I guess I have sort of an odd relationship to them, and to the FPS genre in general. Outside of a handful of console 007 games as a teenager, I barely played any -- I mean there'd be a Halo match at friends' houses here and there, but I was never into PC gaming and didn't own many of the blockbuster console titles. Anyway, now that I've been playing Doom and Quake, I can only say that not reloading in them feels totally natural, and what I remember from the few console shooters I played as a kid, reloading felt totally natural given their pace and mechanics. The games are running with on totally different speeds and playstyles. Reloading wouldn't be on top of the core list of differences.

 

Like, you know -- one game is not all games. Even now, when I come off playing Quake, I don't have a desire to activate mouselook in Doom.

 

14 hours ago, Era Di Cate said:

I guess I asked Doomers who's first FPS was Doom or Wolf3D. This may include people older than the game(s) and people who miracously haven't heard of FPS games til now and decided to start with Doom first.

Present! Ask me what it's like to experience all the gameplay and technological leaps of the mid 1990s in 2017.

Edited August 17, 2017 by Cipher

[Zulk RS]

I'm not an old doomer at all but as far as FPS games go, I've only ever played Doom and Ice Nine (GBA). I don't remember if Ice Nine had reloading. Probably no.
Brutal Doom actually introduced me to reloading and I got used to it when I played a lot of Doom Multiplayer with Complex Doom. Reloading never felt weird to me. I pretty much got used to it in a few hours.

[pnptcn]

20 hours ago, Skeletonpatch said:

I don't remember reloading ever bothering me, I played tons of Return to Castle Wolfenstein and that is probably the first game I remember playing that had reloading. Whether it is there or not doesn't bother me, and in most cases it adds to the strategy required.

 

One thing about reloading that only really bothers me when I think about it (but I never think about it while playing a game) is how unrealistic it actually is in most games. That's the whole point, right? To make it more realistic? I have never seen a game where bullets are ever physically inserted into a magazine. When you remove a mag that still contains bullets from a weapon, wouldn't you expect to see player character empty the mag into a container or maybe refill the mag? In most games the player character just drops the mag on the ground without emptying it first yet the bullets it still contains magically teleport into the new mag. This is most obvious in third-person shooters, Uncharted for example, where you can fully see the character throw the mag on the ground yet still retains the bullets it contained. Not to mention that in many games the ammo pickups are often random and rarely contain the maximum number of bullets and you are never shown to be inserting more into it. Though I'm sure some will argue that it is done off screen, but if that be the case then how does the player grab and insert more bullets into the mag with only one hand while running, without ever putting the gun down?

 

This is only something that bugs me when I think about it outside of playing a game, and I understand that if all games depicted reloading more realistically it probably would become a significant chore if fast-paced action is what the game is trying to accomplish.

This game exists, it's called Receiver and it was created for a seven day roguelike First Person Shooter game jam. You can buy it, it's pretty inexpensive and not much more than a fleshed out prototype. The mechanics are pretty engaging and make for some interesting tactical gameplay. I'd like to see the concept fleshed out into a larger game.

 

There are a lot of different reload mechanics floating around out there, probably nearly as many variations as there are games using the system. Some games will remember that you have partially fired magazines and will hold them in reserve for you. Other games you just toss that ammo as you reload, trading off the rounds for tactical advantage. There are even games that allow you to check your magazines in various fashions. For me it's all about whether or not the actions fit the context of the gameplay. 

 

That said I prefer Doom's heavily abstracted approach to guns. Doom has always felt like an interactive animated short like they made for the film Heavy Metal. The gunplay in Doom works like it does in those cartoons and comics. It's a thematic consistency that is visceral and satisfying.

[kb1]

On 8/16/2017 at 2:26 PM, Fonze said:

Not that I'm an fossil, but when reloading was becoming a thing in games I used to just not worry about it, since autoreload is also a thing in most games. But eventually my older brother harped on me long enough about how stupid it was and I got into the habit of just always reloading asap. Personally, I feel indifferent to the thought of reloading in games, as while the "realism" is cool and all, most of the time it adds next-to-nothing to the gameplay beyond an extremely basic, tedious habit.

Totally agree - it's a pretty useless annoyance. I guess it could be considered a tactical thing, but it only comes into play when you forget to reload, and then it hinders your progress. It is never a directly beneficial thing (except that you don't die). It's like non-alcoholic beer: What's the point? :)

[EmotionalFelineinaMadstate]

You'd have no idea how many times i wanted to kill a thing and my progress was halted with reloading.

[Chezza]

I like the sense of realism in an unrealistic setting so even reloading in Doom is fine by me.

 

It comes down to your play style in FPS games. If spamming fire and sprinting constantly is what makes a game fun to you then reloading sucks. But if you're like myself who gains more satisfaction in timing and management then reloading can add to the experience.

 

I started with Doom and pleasantly transitioned to reloading originally for the sense of realism and animations and grew to appreciate the gamplay elements.

 

Not an older player but enough to experience Doom when it was new.

[Arctangent]

I don't really remember the order of when I played what FPS but Halo, Call of Duty, and Source engine games were all part of my early FPS playing so reloading is a pretty standard thing for me for games that don't try to go as pure action as Doom does.

 

Also I truly hate it when you can't interrupt your reload after you start it. Especially in games with autoreload, meaning you end up not switching to your other weapons when you run out of ammo because you didn't take your finger off the trigger the moment you hit 0 rounds. Really kinda removes the whole "emergency weapon" mechanic when you can't use the bloody thing.

[kb1]

2 hours ago, Arctangent said:

I don't really remember the order of when I played what FPS but Halo, Call of Duty, and Source engine games were all part of my early FPS playing so reloading is a pretty standard thing for me for games that don't try to go as pure action as Doom does.

 

Also I truly hate it when you can't interrupt your reload after you start it. Especially in games with autoreload, meaning you end up not switching to your other weapons when you run out of ammo because you didn't take your finger off the trigger the moment you hit 0 rounds. Really kinda removes the whole "emergency weapon" mechanic when you can't use the bloody thing.

Yeah, I think that outlines my disgust with the whole reload thing..., or any complex human-to-machine interface: If I can't control it, like I would if I were actually holding the gun, realism is lost, and it becomes annoying. I can see how it adds something, but if it can become awkward (or can prevent a weapons switch in time), I say ditch it.

[Erick]

Not really old myself, but I have gotten used to reloading thanks to the like of Source games, the older Call of Duties, and Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Reloading can add a bit of thinking in how you manage your shots and when will be a good time to reload, if a game has reloading in mind as something for the player to consider rather than some obligatory mechanic for FPS games. In Doom 3, once you start reloading you are stuck in a unskippable reloading animation that you can't cancel and if you run into an enemy it just adds some salt to your lost control.

 

If anything, not reloading in the original Doom games (and recent Doom 2016) just feels good in knowing that you should worry on how your manage your ammo as well as how and when do you use your weapons. I don't know, something about a reloading animation, Super Shotgun aside, kind of bugs me even if they're relatively short.

[Woolie Wool]

I first encountered reloading in the late 1990s/early '00s and I don't know if Return to Castle Wolfenstein was the first, but it was one of the first. Really, there wasn't anything to get used to, these were new games, and they had new mechanics, including reloading weapons. Back then, it was actually expected that a new games would have a learning curve. It was no big deal.

[Ashley_Pomeroy]

I played Doom to death in 1994 and I distinctly remember playing Half-Life when it came out - I still have the original CD. The four-year gap between the two games seemed like forever at the time, and it felt as if innovation in first-person shooters was grinding to a halt. The Build Engine games had become a sad joke, and although Unreal looked and sounded fantastic it only had a couple of good ideas whereas Half-Life had loads.

 

Half-Life's reloading mechanic felt like a breath of fresh air. It was a bit of "business" that added complexity to the gameplay without being coming across as pointless busywork. Reloading the weapons in between fight scenes was a short break from the tension. It reminded me of the lock and load montages from Commando and Rambo etc, and also Die Hard, which was still very influential at the time - Die Hard was one of the first modern action films in which the characters actually had limited ammunition and had to reload. The nod to verisimilitude made Half-Life feel a bit more sophisticated.

 

 

Really, it was part of the game's blend of here-and-now realism and alien monsters. Like a lot of computer game mechanics it was in theory completely pointless (on a practical level it just reduced your rate of sustained fire) but like so many pointless things in life - such as blancmange, or candles - it was an acknowledgement that a game isn't just a collection of components, it's a coherent world.

 

[Skeletonpatch]

On 2017-08-17 at 3:35 PM, pnptcn said:

This game exists, it's called Receiver and it was created for a seven day roguelike First Person Shooter game jam. You can buy it, it's pretty inexpensive and not much more than a fleshed out prototype. The mechanics are pretty engaging and make for some interesting tactical gameplay. I'd like to see the concept fleshed out into a larger game.

I've seen that game I think... It's a VR title right? It was made for some sort of contest and was programed by a small group of people in a very short period of time. I think you shoot at automated turrets and drones using either a glock or revolver with realistically depicted reloading (I got the impression that that was the whole point of the game, to depict guns being used realistically). It also uses a very bad procedural generation engine to make levels that may accidentally spawn you next to an enemy that will kill you instantly. Is that the game you're talking about?

 

I also should admit that most of my early FPS games were on Playstation, I didn't get many PC games until I learned about Steam from a friend of mine (which was in 2012 I think). Because of this I didn't play Half-Life (when I was like six years old I watched an older cousin play Half-Life and I thought the game was awesome, and he wouldn't let me play it. Amusingly enough, I also thought that it was a sequel for Doom for some reason), Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, etc. until after that.

[pnptcn]

2 hours ago, Skeletonpatch said:

I've seen that game I think... It's a VR title right? It was made for some sort of contest and was programed by a small group of people in a very short period of time. I think you shoot at automated turrets and drones using either a glock or revolver with realistically depicted reloading (I got the impression that that was the whole point of the game, to depict guns being used realistically). It also uses a very bad procedural generation engine to make levels that may accidentally spawn you next to an enemy that will kill you instantly. Is that the game you're talking about?

Yeah that's the one, it's not a VR thing though. The generated levels are more quick and dirty than what I'd call bad. It'd just string together a bunch of pre-fab rooms. The rooms themselves were interesting enough but there wasn't much in the way of variation. It's pretty rough in general but like I said it's really not much more than a prototype and the devs don't charge much for the game. I think it's worth the price if you are interested in the gun mechanics, which are pretty well implemented and fleshed out. Definitely the point of the game as you mentioned. It's interesting as an idea that's totally on the other end of the spectrum from Doom's heavily abstracted gunplay.

[SavageCorona]

I think Return to Castle Wolfenstein was the first game I played that had a true reload system. I played it very young so my doughy child brain was still able to be molded to do new things.

[Graf Zahl]

Manual reloading is a stupid idea, if you think about it. Good solutions would mean that an empty weapon would automatically reload once it's empty and you try to shoot again - but pressing some random key on the keyboard totally disrupts the flow of the game, unlike reloading a real weapon. This is a classic casr where supposed realism actually thwarts the intended effect.

 

That said, I do not play games where clumsy weapon reloading is part of the 'experience'. It's a killer criteria for me.

 

 

[Arctangent]

An idea I've had for a Doom mod involves weapons that reload automatically when idle - I've always been fond of how autoreload works in TF2 when combined with the fact that you can flat-out interrupt reload animations with basically anything ( including shooting, if you still have rounds in the chambered ) and it just seems to wonderfully simplify the concept, since why wouldn't you try reloading if you're not doing anything else?

 

I mean, aside from the fact that magazines don't automatically eject unspent rounds into your ammo bag and reload themselves while not loaded, but that's less of an issue with shotguns and revolvers anyway.

[DoomGater]

On 16.8.2017 at 7:47 PM, Era Di Cate said:

(...) grown up playing Half Life and I had managed to adapt to the reloading function quite quickly(...)

THAT is the reason, why I hated HL a long time. I thought "Come on, this is a GAME, it should entertain and make fun, we don't need a reaload
button, that's too much real live." 
Today I think, reload can increase the tension of a game. But the best games around still don't need that...

 

BTW- just noticed : Nice typo "reaload"!

[Reisal]

Reloading doesn't belong in Doom. Period.

[everennui]

Doom II on the other hand is a completely different story.

[Reisal]

That's the exception because of the double shotgun.

[Arctangent]

Y'do realize that exceptions and absolutes are mutually exclusive, right?

[Chezza]

I don't know about you guys but I think Doom could use more reloading.

 

After I use my Chainsaw I want to drain the oil, fill it up, replace the worn chains, look at the warranty booklet and rev it. Imagine doing that while running around in a Slaughter map.

[Mr.Rocket]

I guess I'm old as the hills. Was in my 20's when Doom came out, going on 47 now.

Doom is pretty much auto-reload, we just don't hit a button to do it.

It never bothered me to reload, around the time that hl1 and counter strike1 came out. But after playing a couple more modern games and then going back to Doom, I tend to stray my finger over to my reload key in Doom, that of course won't do anything heh.

 

 

[ReX]

On 8/16/2017 at 1:47 PM, Era Di Cate said:

So where did you first encounter reloadable weapons and how did you react?

My first experience with reloadable weapons was Half-Life. I started my FPS "career" with DooM, and pretty much every other FPS game I played until Half-Life didn't require weapon reloads.

 

I don't remember how much I needed to adapt, but I think I managed, as I was able to complete the game. I actually like games with weapon reloading required, as it adds a different element to game-play. However, I don't think such games ought to be compared with games like DooM or Quake, as the intended gameplay is typically quite different.

[Woolie Wool]

On 8/19/2017 at 2:56 PM, Graf Zahl said:

Manual reloading is a stupid idea, if you think about it. Good solutions would mean that an empty weapon would automatically reload once it's empty and you try to shoot again - but pressing some random key on the keyboard totally disrupts the flow of the game, unlike reloading a real weapon. This is a classic casr where supposed realism actually thwarts the intended effect.

 

That said, I do not play games where clumsy weapon reloading is part of the 'experience'. It's a killer criteria for me.

 

 

Random key? The reload key is universally R, which is right next to the WASD cluster. The stock newschool FPS control scheme--WASD for movement, mouse for orientation, E for interactions, R for reloading, Ctrl for crouching, Space for jumping--is extremely efficient. Your left hand never has to leave the WASD cluster.

[Graf Zahl]

25 minutes ago, Woolie Wool said:

Random key? The reload key is universally R, which is right next to the WASD cluster. The stock newschool FPS control scheme--WASD for movement, mouse for orientation, E for interactions, R for reloading, Ctrl for crouching, Space for jumping--is extremely efficient. Your left hand never has to leave the WASD cluster.

 

I do not use that abomination of a control setup. So yes, R is  random key, totally off the charts of where my hand normally is.

 

[Edward850]

24 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

I do not use that abomination of a control setup.

> abomination of a control setup
> Most widely used control layout, especially by professionals or pretty much anybody who plays first person shooters on a regular basis.

 

I'm not sure why you don't know this, but things you don't like aren't automatically violations of the Geneva convention.

[Nine Inch Heels]

33 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

 

I do not use that abomination of a control setup. So yes, R is  random key, totally off the charts of where my hand normally is.

 

If, for some reason, you can't be arsed to rebind the keys properly then it's not the default that's to take the blame, it's your problem. That aside I'd much prefer not to know where your hand normally is...

 

Wanna know what a stupid  idea is? Not being able to manually reload when players can make an educated guess as to whether or not they have the time to do so, because having to base your entire play around when the clips are empty is what actually kills gameplay flow.

 

Not saying having an automated reload is the worst of ideas, but I'd much rather not have that and avoid accidentally reloading the weapon, so I can swap for something else immediately, and reload everything when the scope is clear. Just the 2 cents of someone who has played some games recently, because, you know, hands on experience (pun intended) in gaming actually matters when judging certain features.