Re-Poll Question 002 – Which do you collect first; Health or Ammo?

21st January 2018

Please don’t answer the poll without reading the short introduction below.

You have 50% health and 50% ammo. In front of you the enemy is rushing towards you. There is health to your left and ammo to your right but you only have enough time to collect one before you will be engaged by the said enemy. Which do you collect; Health or Ammo?

I feel this answer says a lot about your playing mentality, your confidence and skill.

As somebody said, you can often kill the enemy and go back for health, assuming you are still alive, but if you run out of ammo you have to go back. I haven’t expressed that very well but I hope you know what I mean.

I would always go for health because I am such a bad player but what about you?

of course, this question can be answered differently depending on the game you are playing and what enemy is rushing towards you, but think of it more as a generalisation than a specific situation.

Original Poll

You can find the original poll here: Poll Question 002 – Which do you collect first; Health or Ammo?

Time to vote

Re-Poll Question 002 – Which do you collect first; Health or Ammo?

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About This Post

Back in 2006, I started a weekly poll. Each question was designed to encourage discussion, rather than simply “Yes!” or “No!” answers. Well, 2006 is a long time ago (11 years at the time of posting this) and the readership has changed. People have come and gone, as they always do, so I thought it might be fun to ask the same questions again.

Perhaps, the different readership will answer differently based on the years that have passed or perhaps they are simply different types of players. That in itself is an interesting question – a bit like new players to the franchise often prefer Black Mesa to the original Half-Life, simply because they never experienced HL when it was first released and have a completely different frame of reference.

Anyway, I plan to re-post all the questions in the same order, although not necessarily every week. So, if a new interesting question appears I will miss a week of the re-poll.

21 Comments

  1. Heinz

    With at 50% both health and ammo, I would take ammo, because with running out of ammo health will be taken from you and you cannot defend your life.
    On the other side without enough health, you can have a monster amount of ammo, but you will die though.
    So it depends on the difficulty of the battle what you take first, although you have both on 50%….this is my opinion and how I play in general and specific situations.
    BTW. I am glad to hear from you after 20 days and that you seem to be well^^

    Have a nice sunday
    Greets Heinz

  2. shark

    AIN’T GOT TIME TO BLEED. Ammo.

  3. Ammo I reckon…I don’t worry about health unless I’m below 20, but it does depend on the situation.

  4. Health over ammo any day. Maps tend to be either way too easy or way too hard – if they’re too easy, I may as well crowbar the enemy to death, if they’re too hard, then I’d rather have the health because ammo is of no use when I’m dead.

  5. -axel-lovecraft-

    I would go for health because having extra survivability gives you one more shot on the enemy especially when they are human grunts, alien grunts, combine soldiers, striders, or gunships.

  6. Assuming 50% ammo means 50% reserve ammo, then health any day. More health means I can survive longer to pick up the ammo later. Even if 50% ammo means 50% left in the magazine, it still doesn’t matter, cause I’m gonna have to reload anyway, so picking up the ammo isn’t really going to help me in the heat of the moment.

    For most games, you aren’t even going to need more than 50% of your ammo to kill any given enemy, unless it’s some kind of boss.

    I think being at half health is a much more immediate need then being at half ammo. Let’s use the HL1 MP5 as an example. You can carry a total of 250 extra rounds. Being at half ammo means you still have 125 rounds left. Now how many enemies are there that take 125 rounds from the SMG to kill, versus how many enemies can easily kill the player at half health?

    50%’s too much of a buffer. I think the question would work better if it were that you have no extra ammo, and you’re at like 10% health. So you’re in immediate need of both.

  7. Is there an option for, “forget my situation trying to figure out which one to choose, get shot, and die?”

  8. Health is the end all be all since reaching 0 health means game over. Despite this I voted for ammo; In retrospect I’m a very impulsive player.

    Why stay healthy when you can blow up the enemy with a ROCKET?

  9. Im’ a coward and want to live ash much time as I can so Health without any doubt 🙂

  10. depends on the game

    in HL2, go for the health, then use the Gravity Gun to pull the ammo to you, then throw the nearest prop at the hostile’s
    especially if you’re playing on Hard, because the AR2 does SO much damage on Hard

    in other games, ammo is probably a better choice

  11. I would dive for the ammo and die in a blaze of gunfire or, if lucky head back for the health after clearing up the enemy. run and gun is my mantra for those situations…

  12. Health, because in most games enemies usually drop ammo or a gun that you can use as a replacement. You’d only need to be able to kill one to keep the train going.

  13. Retsibsi

    Ammo, definitely ammo. Not because I’m a good player but because I rarely get above 50% health at the best of times 🙁 and it’s no good to me getting health if (if? Hah!) I’m being shot to ribbons for lack of ammo

  14. I wouldn’t consider myself a bad player but I’d still go for health, just to be on the safe side.

    Rest of the time – whatever’s closest.

  15. jeo

    health, because the gravity gun is basically op if you know what you’re doing

  16. It depends, I chose Health but if the ammo is attached grenades for machine guns then I might choose ammo.

    Bunch of factors need to be considered.

  17. Ammo, so that I can shotgun it to death. I like shotgunning stuff to death.

  18. Health.
    Because enemies are more likely to drop ammo.

  19. Ammo the majority of times because I can run like hell to get the ammo later. I might change my mind only if the enemy is one of those strider / spider looking things and I need as much firepower as possible.

  20. If you run out of ammo, you can still go on. If you run out of health you are dead.
    I would pick up health.

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