How to add more weapons to the game, without adding anything at all.
One of the more disappointing aspects of the game is the somewhat underwhelming number of options when it comes to the primary weapons. Not a ton to choose from, but as a 3d Artist I understand that adding new weapons is a big time sink. Modelling, texturing, rigging, animating, and coding the weapon into the game all take time. So what if you could add the illusion of more weapons without having to do a single one of those things.
Cut to the chase, I think they should make it so that the ammo attachment options MASSIVELY change how the weapons feel, so that it feels like there are far more weapons in the game then there are. This is how the BSV-M currently functions, with the high power rounds turning it into a DMR, and the CC rounds turning it into an SMG. It's cool, fun, and makes the weapon feel very different depending on how you kit it. All of the weapons have these ammo options, but none of them function in this superior way. The obvious argument against this is that it would make the guns with this functionality unfairly versatile, but the BSV-M is in the game, has this versatility, and no one really cares, so I don't think it matters. Not to mention, with the BSV-M, most people stick to one of the options at a time, rather than constantly switching between them. Care would need to be taken to ensure it's both as fun and as balanced as possible, but that's game design in a nutshell so I think they could do it.
Here are examples of what I'm thinking:
(Note: If I don't mention a certain ammo type, it implies that I believe it should remain the way it is currently in the game)
(Also in case it isn't clear, any time the RoF of a weapon is decreased, the damage per shot should be increased, and vice versa. I'm not implying that damage remains the same for any of these conversions, I just didn't want to type out all the damage values for every single weapon.)
PBX
High power - Leave capacity the same, becomes semi auto (or very low RoF auto) DMR
PP-29
Switch the standard ammo label to say Close combat, and the high power label to say standard. Don't change the stats of these attachments at all, only change the text label. This would ensure that the labels remain consistent for the players to better understand the attachment's functions. When they see "High power" they should understand -> DMR, when it says Close Combat, they should think -> Full auto SMG/AR etc.
MP9
No change
K30
Potentially make the high power a DMR mode, but its a toss up.
M5A3
High power - Becomes DMR
AK-24
High power - Becomes DMR
SFAR
Same as PP-29, just relabel everything. Standard Issue -> Close Combat, High Power -> Standard Issue. Don't change the stats.
AC42
Probably just leave this one as is
LMG's Can remain as is, just relabel them to be consistent
DM7
Close Combat - raise capacity to 30, and turn it into a full auto AR-15 style weapon
SVK
Remain as is.
VCAR
Close Combat - Leave capacity the same, becomes full auto SMG
BSV-M
Already good.
No other changes for other weapons.
The ammo attachments currently don't really change the weapons too much (Mostly only affecting DPS at fairly significant ranges) so I don't think you'd run into problems of people being upset that their preferred ammo type was changed. I'm probably wrong, since people get really attached to things, but who cares, they'd get over it eventually. Plus like I said, the whole system would benefit the development process, as it would enable the dev team to make more out of less. It would mean each time they add a new gun, it would be like adding 2 new guns. And all the systems for this are already in place, they'd only need to alter some of the numbers in the code as far as I can tell.
The only snag potentially is that there may be a limitation that the ammo types can't change a weapons firing modes. Meaning if they wanted one of the types to have full auto capabilities, the rest would have to have it as well, which kinda goes against the idea of a DMR. This is why I suspect the BSV-M has a full auto mode while using the DMR ammo. Regardless, if that is a limitation of the current system, they could solve it in the same way they did with the BSV-M which is to just give it a really low RoF. If possible, it would also be cool if they could set the auto fire rate to be lower than using the weapon in single fire and manually achieving the weapon's max RoF, to reward players with fast trigger fingers, and to give a trade off between steadier aim, or a faster RoF.
Anyways, just one of my ideas to flesh out the game a little.
