Close Quarters Combat- Pugilism and introducing yourself

[Comrade Crimson]

Close quarters combat is something that to me, that should be blatantly obvious in this game. Now- I am not talking about merely melee combat of swinging that axe at that shuffling deadpoke or your best friend- no, rather I am speaking of using your hands and other tools of pain to pull off more complex or debilitating attacks or special procedures/responses.

 

Stuff like grabbing a guy in a neckhold with your knife or hands, and slitting their throat/cracking their neck if you snuck up on him/her or rushed him/her quick enough, or even held them hostage with a gun in those tight situations. And depending on the stamina and skill of the hostage they may attempted to break and wrestle out of your control and flip you on your ass if they are skilled enough for it.

 

Or if someone swung at you with his axe or a zombie wanted a toothy hug you could do a option to dart to the side/duck down and skirt away, but such an action may take some stamina to do and tire you out so it takes timing and skill to do it properly.

 

There could also, if you do level it up, can learn special moves. Special moves like kicking a zombie or person's kneecap in or snapping their joints, winding them with well timed strikes to their gut and chest to cause lack of breathe and high amounts of pain, and other crippling forms of pugilism and 'friendly' interaction. Such moves would require lots of energy and practice, and how the mechanics of this would be implemented- I am not sure.

 

More advanced stuff like perhaps leg sweeps, and with great energy, snapping a zombie's neck if you are unarmed and have no choice.

 

Such maneuvers would be risky but it just gives more options for combat, and perhaps it could be its own skill- untrained people are more likely to fumble up/not be as fast/endurant and will just tucker themselves out or screw up and get bitten anyways, but if you practice dodging you get slowly better and more proficient at it, making you a lot more self sufficient in combat. And given weapons break and the fact it could break in that tight hallway and you just have one zombie between you and freedom... well- you at least have one option to kill the damn thing. Albeit with the risk of getting your head torn off by a hungry corpse.

 

Edit: And I have read that there IS unarmed combat- can someone elaborate it for me? because as far as im aware it's just pushing, shoving zombies back, pushing them over and punching.

[raymond]

What about an ability to spar? Just for training, so you can do it with players or NPCs to learn some moves. Also, the rate of skill increase should depend on your sparing opponent's level, so if it's just two noobz sparing, it'd take really long, and more chance of someone getting hurt in the process. Plus, training on the Zeds might do

[Comrade Crimson]

That's a good idea actually, sparring. It'd also be a good way for the players/NPC's to kill boredom and even bond- though sparring with a zombie might not be the wisest idea. Punch him, he grabs your wrist and chomps on your forearm... you can see where im going.

[Zombiemonkey]

Im all in for more combat moves. But quicktime events is a big meh for me.

 

I would like the ability to grab zombies by their neck. It would be very hard for them to bite you and in the meantime you can push them over.

[ToastedFishSandwich]

I'm not sure how feasible a lot of this would be following the PZ everyman mantra. I sure as hell couldn't snap a man's neck if I tried.

[Zombiemonkey]

I'm not sure how feasible a lot of this would be following the PZ everyman mantra. I sure as hell couldn't snap a man's neck if I tried.

 

The apocalypse becomes more brutal day by day. I can imagine after half a year nobody is a everyman anymore, and snapping a mans neck would almost be normal.

[Comrade Crimson]

It's not hard to twist someone's neck if they are unaware. Its just grabbing their head with both hands at each side in a strong clutch and twisting to one side very rapidly as far as you can go- kinetically it's not hard to apply enough force to snap a person's neck. It's just the emotional training and whole process of catching them unaware- which is what sneaking is for or doing it unexpectedly.

 

The key is the element of surprise and making sure they aren't fully aware of you or your intentions.

 

Or you could simply chokehold them with a sleeperhold/stranglehold.

 

The latter of this tactic would only be useful against humans of course- though snapping a zombie's neck would paralyze them. They'd still be able to bite I believe, just not move the rest of their body.

[Zombiemonkey]

It's not hard to twist someone's neck if they are unaware. Its just grabbing their head with both hands at each side in a strong clutch and twisting to one side very rapidly as far as you can go- kinetically it's not hard to apply enough force to snap a person's neck. It's just the emotional training and whole process of catching them unaware- which is what sneaking is for or doing it unexpectedly.

 

[Impetiso]

I don't think "holding" a zombie it's a good idea (but to NPCs could be nice), as they don't act like a human would. Besides, it seems quite difficult to me, as it require more exprerience than bashing something with a golf club or stabbing something in the face. But I like the idea of an unarmed skill that makes your unarmed kills worthwhile. Right now, i'm used to kill lone zombies without weapons and they don't give me any xp at all (or maybe they are, but i'm not noticing any extra xp) and that doesn't seem fair to me.

[Comrade Crimson]

I don't think "holding" a zombie it's a good idea (but to NPCs could be nice), as they don't act like a human would. Besides, it seems quite difficult to me, as it require more exprerience than bashing something with a golf club or stabbing something in the face. But I like the idea of an unarmed skill that makes your unarmed kills worthwhile. Right now, i'm used to kill lone zombies without weapons and they don't give me any xp at all (or maybe they are, but i'm not noticing any extra xp) and that doesn't seem fair to me.

Yeah- and this measure is something for when you lack a weapon or if the thing breaks on you. Or if you just really like unarmed combat.

 

Mechanics of it all would have to be worked out and im clueless on how you'd code all that... but it'd look cool, and you would probably learn martial arts or develop a style in this sort of environment.

 

And no, holding a zombie is not advised. I don't think anyone would care you are holding a zombie hostage unless you encounter a clone of The Governor and his "daughter."

[Artymis]

 Here's the catch, friend. You aren't some badass who can snap necks like nothing, and dodge out of the way with cartwheels.

 You are a firefighter, or construction worker, or clerk, or something.

Sure, maybe there could be a new class added, "Martial Artist: +Unarmed damage", but the whole reason as to why weapons need to kept in good condition, what use is it to carry around some three-pound, barely together skull-smasher, if you can walk around and karate-chop through a horde? It's the same thing in other games, Fallout, Dead Island, Silent Hill, etc. There are so many weapons because you can't kill an average person or creature just by walking up and punching them, because they usually have more strength than you.

 You lose your weapon? Try and shake-off whoever's latching on to your throat, run from the twenty mindless creatures wanting a you-burger, and look for an umbrella. 

 Take Skyrim for example. You can cut down Draugr and Bandits like daisies, but unarmed? Even Skeletons don't die right away, and they might as well be held together by chewing gum. 

 Fallout, however, had additions to the "unarmed" skill, like brass knuckles and spiked ones, but even those took a lot of "unarmed" skill to dispatch a single enemy, which is convenient, because you could only  attack one target at a time. There was no arc. You couldn't hit three guys standing close together, because you were a regular person with normal hands.

 At any rate, I don't think it's a good idea. With the strength perk, you throw them farther, and do more damage, but you are useless unarmed against more than three. You are desperate, you are probably scared, and that's the point. 

[Comrade Crimson]

Yeah, and what im suggesting here is it takes a LOT of practice to even get to such a point. Hence the whole point of sparring, practicing and the chance of fumbling up. I never suggested this to be off the bat badass for people- this takes time and effort to learn as with any other skill in the game. Police officer would have some training hand to hand mind- so its not unfeasible.

 

And yes, im not saying to become a Bruce Lee exaggeration either even if you get to a very high end point of unarmed combat/pugilist skill- its a limited skill used for stealth, small groups or individuals in a pinch or if you are sure you can overpower them.

 

And not stating you even kill someone merely by punching them, im talking of CRIPPLING moves here, and you can always jab someone in the throat, kick their knee in or wind them in the gut if you are experienced enough in hand to hand fighting, or even as simple as tripping/sweeping them off their feet.

 

It's not something you'd develop easily and it'd take practice and lots of experience to be competent, just like in real life.

 

And for games like Skyrim and Fallout, you can invest in unarmed, even in Fallout 3, to make it worthwhile. While this is not something I'd wish to replicate in a serious game like Zomboid, in Fallout 3 I had a character (on very hard difficulty no less) be able to fist fight super mutant behemoths to death with barely a scratch.

 

Obviously that's not what I'd want for this game, but I'd like to see realistic measures of close quarters combat besides pushing, as there is much more potential for it.