Ammo stacks in 1000, sells in 200
by Mike Schramm 
Mar 16th 2009 at 4:00PM
Whoo, boy. When the news came out that ammo was changing big time in the game, Hunters everywhere pretty much praised it -- no longer would we have to worry about carrying around tons of ammo, with one bag slot spent on just one consumable. But since then, things haven't been so peachy. First, we heard that consumable ammunition wasn't going anywhere, and then we noticed that none of the other changes were happening either. Then, ammo stacks were fixed to 1000 in a recent hotfix on the PTR, but now there's a whole other issue: while it stacks in 1000, it still only sells in stacks of 200. Which means you have to buy, and buy, and buy, and buy, and buy just to fill one slot. And what's more, Dresorull says it's not a bug -- we'll likely see this on the live realms.And as BRK points out, the "1000" stacks aren't even labeled on the PTR yet. He says you can fill your quiver with 28,000 rounds of ammo (of course, you'd have to hit buy 140 times just to do that), but what happened to the quiver changes? Aren't Hunters supposed to get that bag slot back in 3.1 anyway?
It's all very confusing, and this smacks of a missed followthrough: the original Hunter changes as suggested were popular, but we're guessing something came up in their way (either the team was needed on another task, or some flaw in the system as designed kept them from turning consumable ammunition into a permanent item). Either way, we hope this gets fixed -- we know this is the PTR and everything is subject to change, but as it stands, it looks like we're getting a half-finished ammo system when patch 3.1 goes live.
Filed under: Hunter, Patches, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Classes, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Riz Mar 16th 2009 4:05PM
Crystal Ball say: Patch 3.1 - all hunter ammo bugged & unusable. Ghostwalker says " Melee hunter is viable"
Kassu Mar 16th 2009 4:45PM
Also,
"We will see what we can do about this in the next patch, cya in 3 months."
Marie Mar 16th 2009 7:56PM
God, I'm so sick of hearing about this. I have a chunk of my backpack wasted on poisons. Deadly, instant, mind-numbing, crippling, anesthetic, wound... next am I going to see 100 whining threads about making poisons just a button to pick them from a list? While that would be nice, it's not going to happen. People will say we already save space carrying poison mats. No one carried mats. You'd go to the vendor, but the mats, brew the poison and leave. Stacking soulshards are good. Gigantic freaking ammo bags and stacks of 1000 are good. Can't anyone say thanks blizz and just be happy?
Munky Mar 16th 2009 10:26PM
As a hunter, I agree with Marie. The 1000 stack gets rid of the quiver (if the speed bonus is present) and gives us our bag slot back. I was expecting this when it was announced. So, why all the QQ? Stop looking at changes as negative and TRY to see the positive in them.
Derick Mar 16th 2009 11:58PM
I agree with Marie as well. I can only buy poisons in stacks of 20 and they stack to 100. It'll take exactly as long for a hunter to buy 1000 arrows as it does for rogues to by 100 poisons.
This is probably the a precaution so that somebody doesn't accidentally enter 10,000 or 100,000 when they mean 1000 and end up spending a ton of gold and filling their bags.
Ferarro Mar 16th 2009 4:06PM
LOTRO doesn't use ammo.
C'mon, Bliz.
bundee Mar 16th 2009 4:33PM
go play LOTRO
jim carey Mar 16th 2009 4:37PM
aww you must be lost..
i think this is what your looking for: http://lordoftheringsonlinenews.blogspot.com/
Dave Mar 16th 2009 4:51PM
RED ALERT: OVER DEFENSIVE FANBOYS ON THE HORIZON!!!!
Just because your game is your favorite, doesn't mean it's perfect!
LOTRO is a good example of where Blizzard has gone wrong and declines to fix things. They're getting better, but they're still significantly lacking and REALLY REALLY enjoying WoW doesn't mean you have to be a silly little fanboy and defend every terrible thing in WoW to the bitter end. You only end up looking foolish when you do.
Ammo needs to go, it's needed to go for a long, long time. Especially basic ammo. An argument can perhaps be made that the ammo could be in some fashion necessary as an upgradeable component for raid progression, but that could be solved very very easily as an enchant to your ranged weapon or a single item like every other class such as a relic, totem, idol or sigil.
I think it's fairly relevant to point out that an inferior product (ie: LOTRO) can do something right, while the mighty WoW can't even follow through on their promises.
Debesun Mar 16th 2009 4:55PM
As far as I know, the current problem with the creation 'unlimited ammo' is that it will effect one of the bread-and-butter money makers of engineering. This is going to require basically a restructure of all ammunition related Engineering abilities and be required to tune the material requirements to create the items and review the use of Arrow Makers.
If they were to compensate the loss of the Arrow Makers by making the craftable ammunition only available to Engineers, then Blizzard would receive complaints about Hunters losing DPS or Engineers complaining they lost a sustainable method of income with little to no compensation.
If Blizzard turns all current ammunition into permanent versions, you're going to over inflate the market while if you removed the ammunition, the sheer demand is going to cause the price of craftable ammunition to sky-rocket.
You may realise it as a no brainer situation as simple as changing a line of code but the amount of reworking and balancing required (on top of having to look after the 9 other classes in the game and other crafting professions) makes this no simple task.
Take care to remember that other classes have been underhanded in there time. This is more of a minor annoyance then a game breaking experience.
Debesun Mar 16th 2009 4:57PM
Ahh snap. I'm going to get my eyes poked out for calling it a 'Minor Annoyance'.
Ferarro Mar 16th 2009 5:03PM
*laughs* Holy crap, some people take this way too seriously.
Anyway, sorry to all you people who yell at anyone who suggests any game does anything better than WoW at any point in time, but it's true. Even though WoW is by far the best MMORPG in history, it doesn't mean it's perfect. And where it's not perfect is where other games do it better.
Consumable ammo is one of these examples. It needs to go. It's ridiculous, clunky, useless and it's only benefit was the passive bonus on quivers and pouches. So brace yourselves if you can't bear to hear it again: LotRO - an inferior game - doesn't use ammo.
C'mon, Bliz.
Plastic Rat Mar 16th 2009 11:06PM
Neither does Hello Kitty Adventure Island.
Ferarro Mar 16th 2009 11:48PM
HKAI> WoW.
It's not even debatable.
Karilyn Mar 16th 2009 4:09PM
I suspect the end result of this will probably be something similar to the change that was done to throwing weapons.
Instead of being a stacking item, ammo becomes an item that is repaired like normal armor.
Clbull Mar 16th 2009 4:16PM
Imho, I think that Ammo should just be one relic item. Change ammo so that its a Relic that increases the DPS of your shots by x amount. (maybe equal to the arrows they're equivalent to.)
I mean Hunters are the only ranged dps class that rely on a consumable to do DPS, and the only ranged dps that cannot dps in melee range. Why not make ammo easier to get and use?
Fen Mar 16th 2009 4:17PM
That was their original plan... and they've said that they still plan to do it. This is just a transition stage, I guess.
bundee Mar 16th 2009 4:34PM
@Clbull
You've obviously never played a warlock
Boydboyd Mar 16th 2009 5:28PM
@bundee
You obviously forgot that it costs gold to purchase arrows.
I can take my lock out and create 100 shards and the only cash it will cost me is in repairs. Which will be none, because good locks don't get hit. ;-)
(My first character to 60 in vanilla was my hunter. He was my first to 70 in TBC. My warlock was my second to 60 and 70.)
Duvie Mar 16th 2009 4:11PM
Soo...has anyone tried to just hold down Alt while Right Clicking to buy a stack? Would think it would buy a 1000 at a time since it currently buys a full stack of whatever you click on.