The problem is likely known to every shooter player: as soon as you fire a shot, you need to change the magazine. Any weapon expert would tear their hair out, but for gamers, this is common practice. MeinMMO author Benedict Grothaus has managed to unlearn this habit – even though it was painful.
What is this habit about? In almost all shooters of the last 20 years, it has proven effective to change the magazine after the first shot. Why not? That one shot could make the kill, and there isn’t really a disadvantage.
After all, most modern shooters like Call of Duty, Battlefield, Fortnite, or Rainbow Six only count the bullets, not the magazines. Thus, you don’t lose all 30 shots from an assault rifle, but – well, nothing.
Over time, it has become established to change the magazine after a warning shot. It has become so ingrained in my muscle memory that the premature magazine change has almost become a reflex or an instinct.
And is that a problem? In a way, yes. Because reloading right away isn’t always a good idea. You need a certain amount of time to change the magazine and during that time, you cannot shoot or defend yourself.
In some shooters, it is not possible to cancel the reload. At most, switching to a secondary weapon works, if at all. Experienced players exploit such situations and remember when they have fired to then launch their attack.
In the past, this caused me many deaths. Not anymore today, as I have successfully unlearned this habit! Although… others beat me so often until I finally learned better.
Unlearning bad habits – the hard way
This is how I unlearned the habit: For several years I have been playing the tactical shooter Rainbow Six: Siege and it is there that I learned not to reload after a shot. This is due to how Rainbow Six works:
- as a tactical shooter, it is important in Rainbow Six: Siege to hold positions and attack or retreat at the right moment
- the TTK is extremely low – a headshot from most weapons is usually sufficient for an immediate kill, and even body shots do not take much damage from the characters (“Operators”)
- Sounds are a huge factor – if an enemy hears that you are reloading or doing something that opens up your cover, you can expect to die shortly thereafter
In Rainbow Six, headshots are usually instantly deadly – meaning they have a TTK of 0. This makes the tactical shooter particularly dangerous when playing carelessly.
When I started with Rainbow Six, I mainly played the Operators Zofia and Rook. Zofia uses, among other things, a light machine gun that takes a long time to reload but has a large magazine. It often happened that I got shot while “just reloading” because the sound of the bolt opening and the rustling of the belt can be heard very well. More experienced players punished me for this.
With Rook as a defender and his MP5, I often held a position in defense and was overwhelmed while reloading – I lost many rounds as the last defender this way.
Since I don’t like losing, I eventually started not to reload right away. Instead, the magazine is only changed when I am sure that no enemy will surprise me or I am in cover. In heated combat, I even more often switch to the secondary weapon than reload during a firefight – which I never did before.
How can I learn this? I don’t want to force anyone to play Rainbow Six – even though it is a fantastic shooter that even has a place in our best shooters on MeinMMO. But in principle, you can learn this with any shooter that punishes similarly hard, such as:
- Valorant
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
- Call of Duty (in hardcore mode)
- Escape from Tarkov
In older parts of the Rainbow Six series and in other shooters, you actually throw the magazine away when you reload after a shot. This occurs especially in military simulations, such as in ARMA.
It takes a while to overwrite your old muscle memory and get used to not reloading immediately. In the long run, it is worth it, at least according to my experience.
Are you better at shooters now because of this?
I would say yes. When I started again with Apex Legends for Season 8 a few days ago, I noticed that my habit transfers to other shooters – even to those with much higher TTK.
Not reloading immediately helps to observe the enemy better, anticipate what they are planning, and react to what happens. I have a better overview of the overall situation and can decide based on that what to do next.
Even though I hadn’t played for months, I was able to finish five out of seven games in the top 3 together with MeinMMO colleague Florian Franck, one of which I even won. And this despite the fact that the weapons and the entire game feel completely different from Rainbow Six.
Since I stopped reloading after a shot, it has rarely happened that the “last shot” actually could decide a duel. Even if it were to happen and I lose because of it, the fact is: if I had aimed better, this wouldn’t have happened.
So: yes, I think I have become a better shooter player since I stopped reloading a magazine immediately after a shot. And I can focus much better on simply aiming and playing better.
What about you? Do you reload immediately after a shot or do you empty your magazine until it clicks?
