Changes to M44 Special Ammo

[HeresKozmos]

About the pull request

This PR changes the amount of M44 special ammos able to be acquired and used in-game.

Explain why it's good for the game

M44 Heavies are not fun to fight against; they are loaded into an easily concealed weapon which can be carried on your armor, in your belt, in your pouch or even on your uniform or in a backpack which can easily chain-stun someone while others just gun the victim down. Chain-stuns in general are just un-fun to play against.

I also rarely, if ever, see anyone take the Marksman ammo for the M44. It would be nice for people to at least try to use the marksman rounds by making them more accessible. To compensate for the lowered amount available I have also lowered the price of buying a crates of them.

Changelog

🆑
balance: Increases M44 Marksman ammo amount by 25% in Squad Preparation Vendors
balance: Reduces M44 Heavy ammo amount by 20% in Squad Preparation Vendors
balance: Reduces price of M44 Marksman Crate from $3,000 to $2,400 (-20%)
balance: Reduces price of M44 Heavy Crate from $4,000 to $2,800 (-30%)
balance: Reduces amount of M44 Heavy ammo in Requisitions Ammo Vendor by roughly 20%
balance: Doubles amount of M44 Marksman ammo in Requisitions Ammo Vendor
/:cl:

[GoldenDarkness55]

reducing the amounts doesn't really fix the problem, just sweeps it under the rug somewhat. Remove heavy ammo or change the effect.

[Steelpoint]

The main issue is visibility. Shotguns stun, but have obvious sprites. The sniper deals massive damage, but has an obvious sprite. The RPG stuns and does massive damage, but it has an obvious sprite.

M44 heavy ammo has no obvious sprite. Due to the fact its a pistol it can be hidden anywhere and pulled out with no warning.

I'd state either it should be removed, or the mechanism for delivering the bullet should be made far more obvious and now something that can be hidden. This PR won't accomplish either.

[neeshacark]

I don't believe removing stuns bit by bit is the correct way to tackle this problem. I dislike PRs that tackle the "too many stuns" issue by removing a single item from a single team. Xenos have so many chainstun abilities that are exceedingly unfun to play against - and those don't have limited uses like heavy ammo does.

Coming from another server which has dealt heavily with the issue of stun combat and removing it - it's my opinion that the far better solution would be to rip the Band-Aid off and do as much of it as possible at once. Doing it slowly piece by piece drags out the issue and creates lots of frustration - especially when it's on a TDM type server.

It's also frustrating when it mostly focuses on one side - xenos have a lot of ways to chainstun (neuro, warrior juggling, queen screech) and while these are very important to the gameplay of xeno and likely should remain mostly as is - it's still relevant that these are just as annoying to marine players as getting hit by heavy revolver rounds is to xeno players. The difference being that heavy revolver rounds are limited - and don't affect higher tiers of xenos. The stuns I've listed affect essentially all marines and have no limit - just a cooldown.

That's just my take as random marine main number 1123 though.