As of now, the Ammochain is definitely one of the most prominent 'easy' buttons the game has, and by far the most consistent. I'm not asking to nerf it (after all, I'm posting it in Discussion, not Feature Request), but if it is decided it needs a rebalance, let's think of how it could be done:
Ammochain is so powerful, because it solves multiple problems all by itself. Army of the Dead, for example, solves only the problem of giving the shotguns plasma damage, which stacks well with the Shottyman prereq effect, and it is already good. MAc solves many problems by itself at the same time:
- It totally obliterates the reloading subgame.
- It totally obliterates the ammo collection subgame.
- It obliterates the inventory space management subgame (for ammo, at least).
- The previous also opens a new tactic of shoot-scouting, which is pretty comparable to the effects of a Cateye, for example.
- It obsoletes the chaingun, making the plasmagun the weapon of choice a no-brainer, and effectively giving you unlimited plasma damage.
- It simplifies the modding subgame. as bulk mods become totally worthless, the WK is a prereq, and PT mods being very synergistics with the basic trait prereqs.
So, to preserve the spirit of MAc, the first function, in my opinion, must stay no matter what. I propose for consideration a way which will rebalance the 2,3,4 and 5th point:
The Ammochain allows you to stack all the 10mm ammo and plasma cells indefinitely, and chains those stacks into the equipped rapidfire weapon indefinitelyBasically, you'll still need to collect ammo (thus, offsetting the 2nd point), which will stack similarly to the backpack effect, but indefinitely (so, there'll be 2 slots filled, '10 mm ammo(x1284)' and 'plasma cells (x450)', as a corollary to 3), and channelled directly into the weapon, so 1 stays the same.
Now it makes sense to keep the chaingun (and maybe get the Juggler as 8th trait), as the 5th point signifies, for times when you don't need plasma and are forced to conserve bullets such as out-of-LoS shooting (4th point)
The presence of Chaingun also makes the modding subgame a bit more interesting, seeing as it and the plasmagun serve different functions - i'd specialise them like T3P2 chaingun for out-of-LoS scouting, and AT2P2 for plasma, maybe even considering A2TP2/A2T2P for bullet conservation.
(Concerning the Elite Diamond Badge, the introduction of gibbing will make it possible even with such modifications to MAc, I think. Though for me it is still impossible, for now :) )
That's the gist of my idea, all discussion is welcome. It will be interesting to see, at least, the point of view of fellow DoomRL players on MAc balance.