Opinion: Realistic Reloading

I'm mainly talking about FPS games here, but third person games can count too. Technically, any game that uses guns of any sort. One of my pet peeves when watching gameplay videos is the frequent reloading that occurs. It usually goes like this: Fire 2 or 3 shots, reload, fire 2 or 3 more shots, reload. In most games people will reload immediately after killing an enemy. It's become so spastic that it ruins gameplay for me.

And what's worst is that I tend to do it too. Even though I try not to, I often end up reloading unnecessarily frequently and sometimes it ends up killing me in the process. As in I take someone out and while I reload an enemy comes out of the corner and has easy pickings.

It's probably a non-issue for most of you guys but for me it's become a very noticeable annoyance. So I was wondering, would it be too much if shooters started implementing realistic reloading? As in your mags have fixed amounts of bullets in them and reloading too early will waste some of those bullets. It could add a different layer of strategy to the game. You could still reload as frequently as you want, but some of your ammunition will be wasted in the process. Would any of you like to see anything like this in the future? Yay or nay?

Nope. When I play an FPS game I often find myself to have one bullet left in a clip. Why would I want to waste this bullet reloading when I can just reload and my bullet count will increase by 29? I know I can just shoot the enemy and reload, but in any FPS that's not "realistic" it's a suicide.

Gears Of War has the best Reloading....

It would be interesting if there was some kind of skill to reloading. Say you reload just because and you are not empty--you'd waste the rest of the clip. Or, perhaps a quick button combo. Something too add some tension and additional strategy to these games, especially in multiplayer, as I think the former is most certainly lacking in todays games. I sort of miss the Counter Strike aspect of having X amount of deaths and then you watch the rest of the match.

Compulsive reloading happens because games nowadays are unrealistic as far as damage goes. In CoD4 it took two bullets from any gun to kill a guy at short range, meaning you could afford to keep a half-empty magazine and still be able to take out the whole enemy team with it. In mostly every other game it takes 5-10 bullets to kill, meaning you always have to top off your magazine every time you shoot or you'll be left with your pants down when meeting multiple enemies.

By the way, in real life soldiers don't generally just drop magazines when they reload: they place them back into their pouches. SWAT 4 does this perfectly: you have four magazines represented by four bars and you cycle between them every time you reload.

I think it'd be neat to see a game where you have very limited reloads and have to plan them out according to a mission.

I like the swapping between mags idea. Losing bullets when you reload would affect how difficult the developers could make the game. It would affect level design and enemy placement. Making it a resource management type thing would work well for a lot of games I think.

@wwervin: substitute mechanic for not having the "extra bullet in the chamber" option in games i suppose. Guess over the years we got sick of spraying and praying in multiplayer.

Though it be interesting to have more mechanics that forced players to make single shots count.

You should play Red Orchestra.

I wanted to see something like that in a hardcore mode in FarCry 3: give the player limited magazines and require him to manually refill them with picked up ammo when he has a quiet moment.

Of course, make the mechanic optional or people will hate it.

Some games have tried this. I would be very into it if more games did. If you reload, the mag is gone. Or, a cycling system would be cool. ...Rainbow6 Patriots E3? Maybe? Praise the sun?

Well video games are not realistic... They should use a reload system best suited to the type of gameplay they have.....

It would work better in an open world environment where you could choose how and when to fight, rather than with a tunnel-like COD game design.

Exactly, which is why I hoped to see it in FarCry 3

Ever seen the game Receiver?