Bag of Holding in Heretic has missing ammo

[djreksian]

This is only a very simple bug that I have noticed while playing the latest version of GZDoom, which I downloaded only a couple of months ago, but everytime a player picks up a backpack, it gives absolutely no Mace ammo. At first I thought that perhaps the game was made smarter to NOT give you any ammo for a weapon or ammo type that is not in the level, but then I noticed that even when these conditions are met, there is still no Mace ammo in the backpack.

[_mental_]

It's a vanilla behavior.

[Enjay]

For an "ultimate weapon", the firemace is a bit rubbish really. Its untomed volley is not that devastating and a gaggle of enemies can still launch a blistering attack against you because it doesn't do enough to hold your attackers in any kind of pain state, or provide any real barrier or anything; the tombed mode, while doing lots of damage to regular enemies, is really slow and deals limited damage to the big-bads (bosses) that you'd really want to unleash awesome firepower against. And it only has a 75% chance of appearing in a map. And the bag of holding doesn't give ammo for it...

[Gez]

It's much better to think of it as a secret bonus weapon. The manual and the help screen don't even mention it, and it has special coding to make it not appear all the time.

[3saster]

I'm glad in QUAKE: Descent into Heresy, the mace is replaced with the thundergun. While it still has only a 75% chance of spawning iirc, it's far more powerful, and it's a strong enough weapon that it isn't that big a deal that it might be a little more "hidden" than usual. It can down a Maulotaur quite fast and easily, though iirc ammo is made more scarce than the mace's, which makes sense considering it's actually good this time, but you would want to use it relatively sparingly.

[Enjay]

It's much better to think of it as a secret bonus weapon. The manual and the help screen don't even mention it, and it has special coding to make it not appear all the time.

Which is a good way to think about it - but I still think it's a bit rubbish for a secret weapon too.

Actually, I just think it's a bit rubbish.

[Gez]

It's a good weapon against things such as a horde of sabreclaws and it can take down an iron lich quickly. But it does have too many drawbacks (like being gimped by liquid terrain, and being unable to hit ghosts) to be an all-around useful weapon. It's mostly an ammo saver, as in you can preserve your ammo for the better weapons when you get in a situation where it can be used.

Alternatively, in tome of power mode, it can be very useful against doors-with-health monsters such as ophidians and weredragons. When you're running through a narrow corridor and suddenly there's a big bag of hit points blocking your way, running up to hit and squashing it instantly feels good. But again it sucks at long range uses, can only be used point-blank if on a liquid terrain, and unfortunately doesn't work on bosses (sure it would be too easy). If Heretic had arch-viles, the powered mace would be a lot more popular I think.

[StroggVorbis]

@djreksian Funny that you mention that. Originally, the bag of holding did give mace ammo in GZDoom. I was the one who reported that it shouldn't do so.
The mace really is a peculiar weapon, for at least three reasons:

-It's not mentioned in the manual.
-You can't place it directly in vanilla Heretic, only several spots for it to randomly choose one to spawn from. Even then, in singleplayer it has a 25% chance per map to not appear at all. So, with some bad RNG, it's possible to never encounter it at all.
-Bags of holding don't give ammo for it.