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As a gun enthusiast and full supporter of game realism, the addition of weapon optics to Project Zomboid was a great start. Having scopes with zoom capabilities for long range targets and red dot sight for close range. But I know from experience that there is a easy tweak that would make using an optic far more realistic. If you’ve ever shot a gun with a zoom optic, then you know that your vision is narrowed on the spot that you’re aiming at. The more powerful the zoom or the closer your point of aim is, the more narrow your field of view becomes. In addition, when using a zoom scope, the only eye that you keep open is looking down the sight, making your peripheral vision almost negligible. When it comes to red dots, you keep both eyes open when aiming. This allows your peripherals to be utilized far more reliable and effectively. But this also means you won’t have any magnification on our optic, thus decreasing the red dot’s effectiveness at longer range. As I said, I love realistic games. The more minute a detail seems, the cooler I think it is. So I think it would be a great idea for vision to be narrowed when aiming. With what little coding “experience” I have, it would seem to me that it wouldn’t take a great deal of effort to use the lighting system that is already in place to narrow a player’s vision in various ways when aiming at different ranges with different optics. Personally, I think it would be a much needed addition to the firearm system (as much as I love this game, I think it’s fair to say that the firearm mechanics are still a work in progress). From what I’ve seen, this game has always been all about realism. I think adding that little twist of only being able to see where you’re aiming would put a new and more realistic spin on this game.

The thing: So, now that the aiming skill is working I think it would be nice to be able to Practice it. At the moment I think that the only way to improve your aiming skill is going out and killing zombies and that boders me a little,I would really love to be able to improve my aiming without leaving my safehose. Real life shooters spend more time at the shooting range than actually shooting people and they get a really good aiming... So I think it would be nice to see this introduced in the game. I know, ammunation is not much, and the noice is a problem, but think about it when ARCHERY is added to the game, assuming that you can re-use or craft arrows both problems are solved and you have a funny and usefull whay to kill time. How it would work: You should be able to Craft some kind of dummy or target using wood, nails, hammer and whatever the developers decide. Then just place it where you whant and start shooting at it , or maybe to make it easy right click on it and then click on "Train" from a Pop-up menu. Not overpowered: To avoid this for becoming overpowered it would be good to just be able to train your aiming or archery skill only To lvl 3 while using this method, so you will be obligated to go out and serch for a real fight to become a real master... Thanks you all for reading and sorry for my bad English...

Ok, so basically I think that multiplayer gunplay needs some big improvements. Yesterday I was playing on a server and me and one other guy were in our base doing some farming and construction when all of a sudden the door into our base opens (also barricading on player-made doors doesn't seem to work) and a few random guys walk in with guns. Me and my team member both ran indoors and went upstairs to grab our guns, I went out onto the second floor walkway that we'd built and couldn't see the guys but I could hear the gunshots, and saw my teammate get gunned down, I went down and watched the door, waiting for them to walk in, eventually they did (2 guys, one was dead) and it turned into a clickfest. CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK dead, and so was one of theirs. Basically I didn't like how this played out, I hate the auto-aim within a 90 degree radius and I hate the ability to fire at an infinitely high rate of fire using a pistol without any loss of accuracy or anything. Sure the gunfight was tense but it wasn't really a gunfight, you weren't aiming and taking cover or anything you were just seeing who could click faster than the other. In my opinion if gunfights in multiplayer are to be fun, the aiming and shooting needs an overhaul at some point. I have another topic I made a while back which goes into detail about the changes I think should be made: http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/5589-the-aiming-overhaul/ Also something I didn't mention in there is the fire rate of pistols, I think there needs to be a delay after each shot so that you can't just click like a maniac to win fights. Other than that (and the barricade problem and the lack of threat that zombies pose in MP), loving the Multiplayer, although in my 4 hour or so playthough yesterday I saw about 10 zombies total.. -GodWaffle

I'll try to keep this relatively 'simple'. Aiming and Firing The aiming system we have in-game right now isn't all that great; You look in the general direction and hit a target without really aiming at all. I haven't played multiplayer yet but I don't really think that the current aiming system will work very well with it at all. I think hand-to-hand weapons are okay, but guns aren't. First of all, with the 3D system, when aiming, arms should be slightly detached from look direction, so it's a sort of keyhole aiming style. So if I'm facing forward, I can move my character's arms still to aim within that 45 degree forward direction. Bullets would be fired towards the mouse cursor, however would take height into account too. Say you're got a zombie next to a wall, he's standing still, so it's purely a target to shoot at. If you howver the cursor over the grass in front of the zombie, the gun will be 'aiming' at the ground, so the bullet will hit the dirt. If you hover the cursor over the zombie's legs, it's aiming at that height, and will hit the legs. If you hover the cursor a little above his head on the wall behind him, the bullet will hit above him. This would work by having an invisible 'aim target' attached to the cursor, which would move across the space in 3D, up and down walls, along the ground, etc, kind of like a laser pointer from the gun to the mouse. The gun would then trace a ray from the gun's 3D position (even from rooftops or balconies) towards that point in space, and if it intersects with something along the way then that is what it will hit. For example, you're on a three-story building rooftop, in front of you is two-story building with one zombie on the roof. You aim your mouse cursor at the road behind that building, so although you've aimed at the road, if the 3D ray passes through the zombie, it would hit him. This ray would be invisible, and the aiming would not be 100% accurate (skills would play a larger role here), but I think this would work really well for making sure PVP gunfights aren't a "I can click faster than you" affair. Gunshot Wounds So to combat the DayZ style bloodlust that some players may have, gunshot wounds should be dangerous, but not instakill dangerous. Basically, the player body model is already in-game, you've got your body parts which can be damaged, etc. So depending on where the raycast hit point is on player's avater, that part of the body would be damaged with a gunshot wound. A gunshot wound would cause bleeding and agony, and the 'Needs medical attention' moodle would linger until the bullet is removed. You could get lucky and the bullet may pass through you entirely, but if not, then you could risk trying to pull it out yourself (and likely infect your wound), or try to find a doctor. Depending on where the bullet hits, you would have effects to your character: Head = Instant kill Neck = Death in under 5 seconds, slow movement, heavy bleeding Chest = Death in under 10 seconds, slow movement, crawling, heavy bleeding Stomach = Slow movement, crawling, heavy bleeding, possible passing out (Likely needs someone to drag you to safety and carry you back to camp) Legs = Limping or crawling, bleeding Arms = Decreased melee damage, decreased pushback force, bleeding And also, all gunshot wounds should be treated properly, and I believe the devs plan to overhaul the medical system which would definitely play into this to ensure the wound doesn't become infected. Having these effects for getting shot would make it more of a risk to try and shoot someone. These factors would come into play: -You may miss. Result = DEAD -You may hit them and they may shoot you back. Result = INJURED -You may kill them and their buddy shoots you. Result = INJURED OR DEAD -You may kill them and steal their supplies. Result = ALIVE So you'd need to be a good shot, you'd need to be quick enough to pull your gun, aim accurately (+ have good aiming skill), and shoot them before they can react and run/start shooting, and even if you down them, they could still shoot you before they bleed out. Taking Cover This one isn't so big, but I believe sneaking will make players crouch low in future versions, so having more low objects like cars and what-not would allow for some really intenses gunfights. Well, those were my ideas as simple as I could get them, still pretty long, but let me know what you think. This would be a lot of work for the devs but I personally think that in order to have PvP being fun and giving players a chance to defend against griefers and bandits, this is the way it should be done. Thanks for taking the time to read through. -Ben

Hey, As you can notice when playing Project Zomboid right now, guns are super-easy to use, kills pretty much every single time due to auto-aim. I was thinking that this would become an annoyance in Multiplayer (and with NPCs) if it's a matter of whoever shoots first wins instead of having to actually aim. Taking cover First and foremost we'd need a way to get low down so we can hide behind objects (I'm thinking cars when they're added), this would give another way of taking cover in a gunfight. I'm thinking a way this could be achieved is standing next to an object like a car, and holding CTRL will make the player crouch down behind it, while the mouse is facing away from the object the player will stay crouched, if you point the mouse 'over the top of the object' then the player stand up and aim over it, but crouch down again if the cursor is moved back. Better aiming I'm thinking that when you aim with a weapon, rather than aiming in the general direction of the target and just shooting and hitting using auto-aim, you would need to aim with your mouse. When a gun is equipped and the CTRL or RMB is pressed, the mouse cursor would become a crosshair (or a transparent line would emit from the player in the direction of the shot, the higher the player's aiming skill is, the longer the line is, 3D engine will allow this I'm assuming) and you'd aim for the target. When you shoot, depending on your shooting skills the bullet will have a 'radius' of where it will hit from where your mouse cursor was, this radius will get smaller as the player's skill increases. I feel that the transparent line would be better for this as it would feel more like you're aiming from the player's arms than pointing a mouse cursor onto a target. Getting shot When you get hit by a bullet, the game would calculate where you get hit, fatal shots are possible if you get hit in the heart or head, and other vital areas would cause a quick death (you'd bleed out fast), if you get hit in the arm, you will be injured and bleed, but you can bandage your wound and take medication to avoid infection (maybe have a 'remove bullet' tooltip on a set of pliers or something) This would avoid it being a one-hit kill on characters which would be frustrating as hell, and would give you a chance to escape. Anyway, just my thoughts, let me know what you think. -GodWaffle