so i have a fps game with special abilities that players can use agonist each other like making a wall to block bullets and such, but i am not sure if reload should be a thing for my game, what do you think?
yes. an fps game is not a fps game if the guns cant be reloaded
yeah but the players can make walls or use other abilities, (if there is reload its gonna have inf reserve anyway so its gonna be just a time gap between bullets) is there any pros and cons to not having reloading?
reloading helps slow the game and provide players a chance to act.
a good player doesn’t push their opponents if they’ll be caught unable to defend due to reloading
and less skilled players can use the reload time gap to probably stand a chance against better players
creating a wall might stop players from taking damage, but it doesn’t necessarily stop an attack–players are still under the same pressure they’ve just given themselves more time to respond, and time doesn’t always equate to opportunity. engaging someone who’s fully prepared behind a wall is different from engaging someone you found with no shots in their gun.
but still it depends on the game. if it’s at a slower pace you might not need to implement reloading, or if other abilities can create the same opportunities that a reload time gap would.
I would say that you should include reloading. It would give the wall building mechanism more emphasis in my opinion. Consider this example, a player is in a gunfire with an opponent and runs out of ammunition. The opponent subsequently kills the player due to the fact that the player has no ammunition to defend itself. Now by being able to construct walls or obstacles between players, players who run out of ammunition can use strategies that involves wall building to buy the necessary time in order reload and proceed with the combat.
should mana be a thing then? i mean the skills already have cooldowns but im not sure if it should be a thing alongside reloads
im not entirely sure, it depends on how you envision your gameplay.
if your game focuses on gun gameplay and abilities are just to compliment that, then i think having players be limited by a cooldown and a mana amount would be too much; and especially frustrating when a cooldown is finished but you have no mana or when you have lots of mana but you’re waiting on a cooldown. if it’s a fast-paced game then mana would bring in a strategic element that doesn’t fit well if players die faster than they have time to recharge–also would stopping to recharge be worth the long-term risk (risks as in: would stopping to recharge give the enemy time to act or would the player really need a full bar of mana to do something) if players can just keep going with a fully loaded gun.
on the other hand if skills-mostly is a viable way to play and guns can compliment that (though i’ve never seen a game where guns are secondary to skills) then mana might be a similar slowdown to reloading depending on how quickly it’s used and how quickly it can be restored. the cooldowns you mention are probably already that slowdown.
I mean, let’s take a look at Doom.
Most of the games in the series don’t have reloading at all, and the original Doom even created the original Deathmatch game mode. However, you’d maybe have to compensate with movement techniques and building (which you will add), but games like Fortnite have reloading to add strategy.
This is honestly a question for the developer, since it’s your game. You can remove reloading, just try to add balancing.