I have plenty of criticism for Havoc, but ammo isn’t one of them. Limited ammo is actually well handled in Havoc, better than the Auric modifier with no ammo drops at all. There is certainly something to be said about ammo economy for specific weapons, and broken damage breakpoints.
Hard disagree. There should be no ammo pick ups ever. Learn the melee system.
A better argument: Enemy spawn frequency and location, a much stronger deterrent to avoiding melee for a “ranged only player.”
With poxwalkers and bursters popping up around the corners and behind players like Pennywise from IT it’s safe to say focusing too much on ranged combat is suicidal at higher difficulties.
People have sometimes suggested introducing unlimited ammo refills at a few select locations in every level à-la Vermintide 2, and then toning down the spawn rate of ammunition and crates to account for this, according to the mode (normal or Havoc) and the level modifiers.
I find this quite attractive, as it would introduce a level of predictability to ammo you can play around with, instead of praying you don’t have a selfish ammo-hungry goblin on your team.
But as ammo is rarely an issue outside of Havoc, I doubt FatShark would even entertain the thought of such a rework.
for me that would take one puzzle piece out of the replayability.
inept as they might be, randoms are the one thing that keep the game fresh when i can trace every map backwards in my sleep and got most corners mapped for the “ideal track”
them scrounging for ressources adds this skittish element that makes for awesome situations sometimes.
another level of “security” like the medstations would take that away in my book and alter their behavior to the more boring side, knowing they can restock “in 50 meters”
then again it is very rare (or i go guns blazin on purpose) to go low or out of ammo, so its already a non-issue.
nor have i experienced it in havoc so far, matches were either total braindead from the start and a loss long before anyone went “dry” or you had players in sync from step one and got each other covered for ammo 
maybe as an anti “C I VI” modifier… D AC CA 
I like the idea of centralized ammo depots; kind of like how healing stations work. It naturally encourages teamwork and reduces the tendency to hoard, especially if regular ammo drops are rarer.
Vermintide 2 handles this well: it’s hard to grief the team over ammo, and shortages usually only happen if you waste it. In Darktide though, even in Auric missions, you sometimes get players who burn through ammo on trash or trigger Demonhosts for no reason.
Design-wise, I think the goal should be to make it easier to play nice than to play selfish. There’s less accountability when it comes to snatching easy pickups for an instant benefit. The scarcity mindset will have people just pickup ammo rather than walk past, whereas with a station, the scarcity mindset works for the team. Everyone sees there’s a 4 or less uses, and you only get a few through the mission.
People can still abuse medicae stations, but I’ve noticed they tend not to. I wonder if that would work for something like a 4 use ammo depot.
Fixed ammo and meds allocated per player. Whether enough for whole mission or refill points that only allow one tap per player.
Remove ammo and med ground drops.
Either make medstations 4 charge and one tap per player or remove entirely.
Sharing will then become non-issue.
Individuals become accountable for their own resources in terms of ammo priority use and encouraged not getting hit knowing their meds are limited.
On the other side I’ve seen what happens when a player gets annoyed by a selfish team mate and what he’ll do in response. Almost like retribution.
Turns the game into PvP competitive ammo hunt game.
i mean thats the “rando-experience” sometimes and we’re rejects after all.
fresh outta a cell, why should i trust some gaunt puny thats been stuffed into my shuttle? 
if they play efficiently i ping them the ammo any time, if they prove to be dead weight i see that i get the ressources necessary to carry the round.
truth be told it adds a welcome layer of mild stress that keeps each mission “fresh”
often enough i slide by a crate,being lucky to find exactly the clip that keeps me going just long enough to salvage the 
show thats going on, or the nade that removes the pesky cluster of “insert annoying enemy here”
taking away the randomizer takes a bit of my replayability
Giving the team more reasons not to play well together for the sake of it being “lore accurate” isn’t compelling at all.
Putting the game on rails is not playing well together. Other players can be unpredictable but making everything predictable is a step towards a walking simulator.
In co-op games, and in real life, smart design isn’t about removing freedom, it’s about guiding people toward better outcomes.
Nothing about encouraging teamwork makes a game a “walking simulator” or limits initiative. If anything, good co-op design gives players more opportunities to shine together. It’s like how society works: we don’t rely on everyone always making perfect decisions. We put guardrails in place that make doing the right thing easier than doing the wrong one.
We don’t expect people drive their trash to the landfill, because we know they’d toss it in the streets; instead we have trash pickup service and bins. People and players often take the path of least resistance and won’t be held accountable if we don’t make it easy for them.
We have traffic lights and lane markings. These don’t restrict your freedom to drive; they help prevent chaos. In a game, clear indicators like the uses on a health station help teammates coordinate smoothly without needing constant communication or micromanagement of ammo.
Bottom line: guardrails don’t limit you, they protect the you. Good co-op design works the same way. The Coherency mechanic is a good example. It’s not about holding hands, it’s about making teamwork = the path of least resistance.
its not about “lore accurate” i want them to be “uncomfortable” and up their game, not be lulled into some false security.
in my opinion it only enforces bad behavior skill wise.
just had a havoc 40 match were mates were gratiously supporting my rumbler cause it took good care of bosses and pesky reapers.
and they werent wanting for ammo themselves.
such things made the match more “precarious” thus more demanding and in the end more fun.
ammo stations along the way would have made such experience null and void
In Havoc you’re not with a standard quick play team. I’m not suggesting remove all pickups. I simply think that it could easily be reduced by 50% and then throw in occasional ammo stations.
There was a time when ammo pickups weren’t so plentiful, but that didn’t help with the players who spam all the ammo. Now there’s just so much it’s trivialized ammo, so I think a happy medium would be an ammo station with reduced pickup amounts.
Havoc mode is a different beast though, and it can already have reduced ammo.
I don’t think the proposition was for Havoc…
I am fine with the current state of ammo, as long as there are only 1 or 2 players utilizing ammo heavy specs. Then it works. If there are 2 Gunluggers, then it’s just a bull charge for the ammo. It feels like you spend more time running around picking ammo, than actually shooting. Which, to me, isn’t something I find super enjoyable in a game where you shoot guns.
I’ve always said it, just like the Maelstrom modifier, “Mostly melee elites, No ammo”, they should make “Mostly ranged elites, UNLIMITEEEEEEEEEED ammo”, or massive amounts of ammo pickup.
It doesn’t have to be mostly ranged elites either, just a modifier that says “GUNS BLAZIN’ FOLKS!”, and people can go full shoota spec and have some fun.
the havoc match was just an example for peoples “with brains”
when people can make due in a modifier with faaar less ammo from the getgo, your standard peeps should be force-learned to at least manage in lower diffs.
anything lower:
still applies, sadly any auric maelstrom yesterday was the later so i saw it to myself to finish the match “wenn jeder an sich selber denkt, ist an jeden gedacht”
dudes been nosediving 6 times, he aint no use for ammo anyways
and no, he wasnt red or even yellow when going down the first 3 times, just plain bad
I also don’t enjoy the ammo situation.
Right now I can be as ammo efficient as I can, but I’m still penalized if I end up with one or more teammates who’s inefficient and chase ammo pickups. I.e. nearly every mission.
This leads to either rushing infront of them to try and grab the pickups for myself, and/or searching every corner for any pickups they might have missed while my team is leaving me behind. Not fun.
I wish ammo pickups were shared, like Plasteel/Diamantine, so that the only person penalized for being inefficient is the inefficient player. This would also make it possible for Psykers with staves to pick up ammo (since it would be distributed to teammates), and you’d get away from having to ping ammo for a teammate to notice and come over.
Survivalist is also a problem, because it just doubles the amount of ammo I get from a mission. As problematic as Survivalist is, it’s effect is actually cool because it ensures your reserves can keep up with the variable amount of Elites/Specialists you face.
Please, not that
Or it would mean that there would be one guy that spend hos time at checking chests while others would want to run even faster than what we currently see.
No thank you to this horrible solution
There are ammos everywhere in regular missions, enough in mortis trial and Havoc, well that’s Havoc and you should know what to expect.
Seriously, in auric/regular, there are so many ammo pickup that you cannot run out of ammo, even with a veteran.
I don’t see your logic. Why would people want to run even faster? And why would someone suddenly start checking chests more than the current design incentivises?
Melee builds are what dictate the speed, because they can just ignore ammo pickups, so nothing would change in terms of speed. If anything it would let ranged builds keep up. And you already need to run around checking every chest if you’re not getting enough ammo, so I just don’t see your logic.
We don’t play same game. If the guys have magically ammos, they will just want to push even faster.