Problem with no ammo drops

[thebiomage]

For the first time I have to say that I got screwed over by the game not giving me any ammo drops. I usually start using weapons around floor 3 for some of the harder rooms, and by floor 4 I hardly ever use the starting weapon anymore. This has always worked fine, you use limited ammo guns and the game seems to give you ammo drops frequently enough that it doesn't become a problem.

Well this time I got 0 ammo drops from floors 3-5, and a single ammo drop in bullet hell. I desperately kept using guns with limited ammo on floor 5 (even in situations I could have managed with starting pistol) since it seems the game gives you ammo if you use your guns. I was forced to clear bullet hell with the pistol since the only guns left with ammo were couple of boss killers (Stinger, etc).

I even had the dog (actually I had both the dog and the wolf, what are the odds) and still no ammo. I did get 4 keys in bullet hell though, really useful. Like I said I've never run into this problem before, so it doesn't happen that often, but when it does it pretty much completely ruins your run. Was one of my best runs as well, 4 master bullets and still got to lich stage 2, but alas.

The ammo drop system should be more reliable so things like this doesn't happen. If you haven't gotten an ammo drop for the past 2 floors the game should 100% give you one. Or just make the ammo drops happen even if the player uses the pistol. It's a very bad cycle when you have very little ammo left and if you start using the pistol to conserve ammo, you make the game spawn less ammo. If using pistol didn't affect ammo drop rates then the player could at least use his skills to overcome the bad RNG, but now it just potentially makes the situation worse.

/rant

[Gieron]

Originally posted by thebiomage:

I usually start using weapons around floor 3 for some of the harder rooms

STOP doing THAT people ! The lack of ammo starts to really affect you around floor 5 to 6 because the game thinks that your run ends at the Dragun for some reason. You don't need to use your dumb starting weapon on the first 3 floors, that won't change a thing !

[Pantera]

so you had one single bad run and things should be changed because of this. oookay

[thebiomage]

Originally posted by Pantera:

so you had one single bad run and things should be changed because of this. oookay

Yes, extreme cases like this where the game becomes impossible (unless you wanna pistol the last boss?) because of RNG shouldn't happen. In all honesty I wouldn't even mind the fact ammo drops can be extremely rare, but the fact that you can't use the pistol to conserve ammo is just bad / weird design. Using pistol to clear bullet hell takes skills, why should the player be punished for being skilled? Now you can't adapt to the bad RNG, you just have to pray to RNGesus.

If pistol didn't affect the ammo drop rates I would have probably been ok, I kind of wanted to use the pistol on floor 5 but knew it would probably make the ammo drops even fewer (not that I got any of them anyway).

[Pantera]

we better not tell this guy that there was an achievement for completing a run with just the pistol in the beginning :D

[Gieron]

Originally posted by Pantera:

we better not tell this guy that there was an achievement for completing a run with just the pistol in the beginning :D

I agree with this guy about the Dragun -> Lich part of the game, already made a thread about that. I don't agree with using your starting weapon for first 3 floors tho because i never felt the need to do that.

[Arghaab]

Originally posted by Gieron:

You don't need to use your dumb starting weapon on the first 3 floors, that won't change a thing !

I've already heard a bunch of people saying that ammo drops increase when you fire something else that your starting weapon, and therefore you shouldn't use something else, otherwise you will drop ammo instead of having a chance of droping items.

[thebiomage]

I actually do use guns on floors 1-3, on the bosses. And occasionally on hard rooms (lead maiden, etc). I play the marine most of the time and find his pistol better for normal enemies than some of the guns.

Under normal circumstances I don't use pistol on floors 4 and beyond, but it would be nice to have the option to do that if the RNG doesn't want to give you ammo. If you do that now, you potentially end up losing ammo instead of saving it, which is what I have a problem with.

[tex2790]

I do feel like the drop rate of keys and extra silver casings on hell is a bit irritating though. Getting 3 key drops and no hp, shields, or ammo throughout hell feels really bad, especially if you had to use up every bit of ammo on the dragun fight. I wish there was a shop or maybe a gun munch type chest that you can exchange casings/keys for different consumables, seems most of my hell runs are lost due to the dragun fight draining my ammo completely and finding nothing but a handful of keys and casings

[thebiomage]

Originally posted by tex2790:

I wish there was a shop or maybe a gun munch type chest that you can exchange casings/keys for different consumables, seems most of my hell runs are lost due to the dragun fight draining my ammo completely.

I found an Evil Muncher once in bullet hell, in a secret room. Didn't dare using it, since according to the wiki "Evil Munchers consume a random amount of guns and give a new, fully loaded gun in exchange. "

EDIT: Munch3r is too naughty for steam?

[Gieron]

Originally posted by Arghaab:

Originally posted by Gieron:

You don't need to use your dumb starting weapon on the first 3 floors, that won't change a thing !

I've already heard a bunch of people saying that ammo drops increase when you fire something else that your starting weapon, and therefore you shouldn't use something else, otherwise you will drop ammo instead of having a chance of droping items.

If ammo drops then it drops alongside the pickup. You will get a double drop pickup + ammo. Got that many many times.

Originally posted by thebiomage:

I actually do use guns on floors 1-3, on the bosses. And occasionally on hard rooms (lead maiden, etc). I play the marine most of the time and find his pistol better for normal enemies than some of the guns.

I always swap my starting gun for a weapon that's good for clearing out rooms. Some kind of machine gun, something that isn't an obvious boss killer. Then i use the boss killer for the boss because that's all i need really - a single gun to kill the boss, rarely a second one. Unless i'm in a situation where all of my weapons suck then i don't use the starter and i'm fine on ammo for the two guns i need: a room cleaner and a boss killer.

Do you feel the game forces you to use the starter that often ? Or do you just like pew pewing slowly single bullets for so long ?

[thebiomage]

Originally posted by Gieron:

Do you feel the game forces you to use the starter that often ? Or do you just like pew pewing slowly single bullets for so long ?

Marines pistol is accurate even at long range and does good enough damage. I wouldn't be using any of the other characters pistols for that long though. There's also that feeling of "well, since this isn't all that hard why should I waste my ammo". Which I know is flawed reasoning since the game gives you more ammo for using ammo, probably to encourage you to use the guns.

But I think if ammo drops were more frequent when I use my pistol, that would actually encourage me to swap to another gun "gee, another ammo drop that I can't even use, better start using my guns". But now you get less ammo drops while using the pistol, falsely making you believe you should be conserving ammo.

[Zeks]

Yep, happened to me quite a few times. What's strange, sometimes ammo drops in OK quantities but then you have a run with 0 ammo drops and cant do a thing...

[Arghaab]

Originally posted by Gieron:

If ammo drops then it drops alongside the pickup. You will get a double drop pickup + ammo. Got that many many times.

Oh really helpful, thanks

[Stovich]

Originally posted by thebiomage:

Originally posted by tex2790:

I wish there was a shop or maybe a gun munch type chest that you can exchange casings/keys for different consumables, seems most of my hell runs are lost due to the dragun fight draining my ammo completely.

I found an Evil Muncher once in bullet hell, in a secret room. Didn't dare using it, since according to the wiki "Evil Munchers consume a random amount of guns and give a new, fully loaded gun in exchange. "

EDIT: Munch3r is too naughty for steam?

Unfortunately, one of the gun unlocks is tied to giving 10 guns to evil munchers in bullet hell (across all playthroughs)