In most FPS games, ammunition is a limited resource. Overwatch shies away from this norm, instead giving our heroes endless ammunition belts that are presumably hidden away somewhere under their outfits. Since the influence that this might have on the game isn’t as immediately visible as common targets for complaint (such as Hanzo’s Scatter Arrow or McCree’s Fan the Hammer) we tend to gloss over it. Yet the impact of such a mechanic is far-reaching.
The primary benefit to infinite ammo is that it keeps players in the action for a bit longer, with players only needing to drop out of combat to get healed up or to find a health pack. It also helps with the games accessibility by removing an element that could cause new players some confusion.
Yet the cons are much more numerous, though they may not be as obvious at a glance. The clearest side effect of infinite ammo is that there is little reason not to spam hopeful shots as often as possible, even if you have no idea where the enemy players might be. Of course, there is the potential downside of being caught with low ammo in your clip at a bad time due to your spamming, but this can be mitigated quite well with game sense—and even with finite ammo, this is still a factor players need to be wary of. Indeed, all of the counters to playstyles that have their power multiplied by unlimited ammunition would still apply if ammo were limited.
In other games, ammunition replenishment is covered by power-ups on the map (adding a map control element), or through support abilities (adding a teamwork/support element). By removing ammo entirely, the game is deprived of this potential depth, as well as potential abilities that could manipulate this mechanic. For example, ammo replenishment abilities are off the table for future support heroes, and mechanics that manipulate reserve ammo in some way are no longer possible.
Infinite ammo also multiplies the advantages of projectile weapons over hitscan. Due to the nature of projectiles, enemies may accidentally walk into their trajectory, whereas a hitscan weapon is clearly not going to hit anything that isn’t there the moment you pull the trigger. Traditionally, projectile weapons are far more reliant on ammo replenishment for this reason, and without having to worry about that factor anymore, they can freely spam to their hearts content.
That, in the end, is one of the biggest issues with having infinite ammo: it removes one of the most important limiting factors on spam, which is the need to consider how you’re going to actually refill your ammo, as well as the potential downtime that may come with that—which creates windows without spam that your opponents can take advantage of.
The in-practice effectiveness of spam supports this idea. If Hanzo is spamming arrows into a chokepoint at head level, suddenly that chokepoint is hazardous to his opponents, unless they want to take a gamble that isn’t remotely in their favor. Junkrat, similarly, can almost completely deny a path to the opposing team by himself, while also being excellent in actual head-on engagements. Aside from those two, practically every hero with a projectile is going to be spamming any chance they get, such as Zenyatta, Mei, and Pharah, and this results in a non-trivial amount of damage caused/kills gained. Of course, these heroes are supposed to be good at area denial, but without ammunition to keep them in check, their impact can become overbearing.
Spam is pervasive enough in disorganized public games, where playing without a healer can be an effort in frustration with the amount of residual damage everyone tends to take from spam. Yet it’s also important in competitive games, just in different ways—such as the aforementioned Junkrat area denial, lucky spam hits forcing flankers to retreat for heals and effectively negating their flank entirely, delaying pushes by forcing targets to fall back and get healed up, enabling flankers/snipers to finish off wounded enemies who happened to get hit by spam, coordinated fire on a Reinhardt shield heavily negating its effectiveness, and sometimes even killing people outright by itself.
All of that said, even with limited ammo, it’s important to remember that spam would still be utilized (as TF2 demonstrates). It would just have an extra check on it to help keep it balanced without making the characters that utilize spam any weaker in direct combat situations. Other ways to tackle spam, such as changing projectile speeds, hitbox sizes, and adding damage drop-off, could have much more impactful unintended consequences.
Infinite ammo heavily impacts heroes with limited-health barriers, such as Reinhardt and Winston. If there’s a lull in the fight, there’s barely any reason not to spam as much damage as possible into a Reinhardt shield, whereas with limited ammunition, it would be much more of a decision. Ditto with Winston’s barrier, which people would certainly think twice about attacking if they were down to their last few magazines of ammunition.
Flankers are also effected, as unlimited ammo removes certain important decision making elements. Would a Tracer or Genji be so willing to poke away at the backline without a care in the world if they knew they’d have to fall back to refill their ammo after a while? Surely, but they’d have to be a lot smarter about it to ensure they have ammo left over to take the actual kill opportunities. The speed and abandon with which a Tracer charges Pulse Bomb by chipping away at enemies from mid-range is a good example.
Overall, having infinite ammo deprives the game of a fair amount of depth by removing a potential variable from map and ability design, and removes what could be an important limiting factor on some fairly oppressive playstyles, such as the current prevalence of Tracer. It also props up spam, which, as most would likely agree, is fairly obnoxious to play against, at least proportional to how simple it is to actually be the spammer. It would no doubt be a large effort to convert the game to a limited ammo system, requiring additional power-up locations to be added to maps, as well as the repurposing of some abilities, but it’s an undertaking that I believe the game would benefit from in the long run.
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