Jump to content

Make Guns Better


TheBuzzSaw

Recommended Posts

I feel like it's too hard to become reasonably skilled with guns. It's bad enough that guns are incredibly loud and draw the ire of the hordes upon you. Now I have to deal with the fact that I can miss my target... a lot.

 

I propose a much simpler change: make ammo extremely rare. Survivors treat guns/ammo like gold because they are that valuable. I think the decision should not rest upon whether I think I can hit my target; it should rest upon whether now is the time to burn through my precious ammo cache to deal with a number of zombies.

 

Since guns and ammo are (roughly) as common as bats and frying pans, it drives the design to make them just as "fair" as those other weapons. As I said above, I think the scarcity should drive the power.

 

Of course, I might also just be really bad at using guns in this game, but I feel like I miss far too often even at level 2 or 3 as a police officer (despite charging the attack). I'm not saying guns should have 100% accuracy, but they should be much more useful sooner.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I feel like it's too hard to become reasonably skilled with guns. It's bad enough that guns are incredibly loud and draw the ire of the hordes upon you. Now I have to deal with the fact that I can miss my target... a lot.

 

Nasko and myself said this to RJ a while back, not too sure if anything came of it though. I do agree with you though, the difficulty for weapons can feel a bit comical at times.

 

Sorry RJ, still love you. <3

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guns aren't that easy to use in real life. I think reloading, cleaning, and maintaining weapons should be very hard in-game if you have no experience. But then again, it doesn't take a genius to know how to point the loud end of the gun and make it go boom on a zombie's head. I think range, skill, movement, etc. should all factor in.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guns aren't that easy to use in real life. I think reloading, cleaning, and maintaining weapons should be very hard in-game if you have no experience. But then again, it doesn't take a genius to know how to point the loud end of the gun and make it go boom on a zombie's head. I think range, skill, movement, etc. should all factor in.

I agree and disagree. Guns should not be good right away. I am OK with struggling with reloading/cleaning/whatever. However, there has to be a degree of game design/balance here. Even when I pick the proficient police officer, I am still a bumbling fool with a gun, which makes no sense. I would argue that there is no positive tradeoff for mastering marksmanship. When being a level zero axe man is leaps and bounds better than a fairly proficient marksman, we have a problem.

 

Currently, I only use guns because they are kind of fun, and it's hilarious to draw huge crowds of zombies to a single location. However, when I'm seriously trying to survive, I cannot think of a good reason to pull out a gun... ever.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guns aren't that easy to use in real life. I think reloading, cleaning, and maintaining weapons should be very hard in-game if you have no experience. But then again, it doesn't take a genius to know how to point the loud end of the gun and make it go boom on a zombie's head. I think range, skill, movement, etc. should all factor in.

 

I dunno, from my experience shooting guns, when you first start shooting guns, it is hard to hit a target, especially a moving one. Granted when target shooting you are usually shooting at much smaller targets than human bodies...

 

Maybe the comprimise could be they hit zombies easier, but you don't always hit in critical areas so you don't always get kill shots when you do hit. This could be solved with a wider and lower damage range with a critical chance (for those headshots)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It just feels like I can never reach a point where I can reliably take down a small group of zombies. I think guns should be a strong mid/late game item where the player is excited to find ammo ever. It should be even more rare than axes. From there, the player should reasonably expect to spend about one bullet per zombie.

 

Also, if we wanna talk about "realism", I need some kind of indicator to know that I have fully taken aim. If I am actually firing a gun, I know when I've centered my sights on the target.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If i could get level 2 aiming and level 1 reloading with claustrophobic and agoraphobic (max scared level) Then you should do fine. Also ammo drains relatively quickly for me D: but luckily zombies drop it on death.

 

But cleaning out guns should be added but not where it gets extremely annoying

 

Taking out zombies is easy with guns (and something I love) because shotguns are a thing. They knock down enemies and also push them back (I think).

 

edit count 6

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It just feels like I can never reach a point where I can reliably take down a small group of zombies. I think guns should be a strong mid/late game item where the player is excited to find ammo ever. It should be even more rare than axes. From there, the player should reasonably expect to spend about one bullet per zombie.

 

Also, if we wanna talk about "realism", I need some kind of indicator to know that I have fully taken aim. If I am actually firing a gun, I know when I've centered my sights on the target.

 

The problem with that concept is when you are aiming at a target, if you are not experienced, you will pull (instead of squeeze) the trigger in such a way that the trajectory changes (possibly enough to be way off the mark). Probably much more likely to pull vs. squeeze when you are under pressure.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Guns aren't that easy to use in real life. I think reloading, cleaning, and maintaining weapons should be very hard in-game if you have no experience. But then again, it doesn't take a genius to know how to point the loud end of the gun and make it go boom on a zombie's head. I think range, skill, movement, etc. should all factor in.

I agree and disagree. Guns should not be good right away. I am OK with struggling with reloading/cleaning/whatever. However, there has to be a degree of game design/balance here. Even when I pick the proficient police officer, I am still a bumbling fool with a gun, which makes no sense. I would argue that there is no positive tradeoff for mastering marksmanship. When being a level zero axe man is leaps and bounds better than a fairly proficient marksman, we have a problem.

 

Currently, I only use guns because they are kind of fun, and it's hilarious to draw huge crowds of zombies to a single location. However, when I'm seriously trying to survive, I cannot think of a good reason to pull out a gun... ever.

 

 

Well, remember, we're still lightyears away from full release. Not only will dozens more weapons, firearms and melee alike, be added, but tons of balance will be added too. Silencers will eventually be implemented too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I feel like it's too hard to become reasonably skilled with guns. It's bad enough that guns are incredibly loud and draw the ire of the hordes upon you. Now I have to deal with the fact that I can miss my target... a lot.

 

Nasko and myself said this to RJ a while back, not too sure if anything came of it though. I do agree with you though, the difficulty for weapons can feel a bit comical at times.

 

Sorry RJ, still love you. <3

 

Romain mentioned decreasing the chance to miss at close range (seems to be the majority of complaints) for guns a qhile ago, now. Not sure if the change has been released yet.

But, well . . . there's one reason not to limit ammo: everyone the complains about the lack of ammo (and really, it's already paltry -- I'd imagine you'd struggle to find 300 bullets). Now that people miss more, providing opportunities for new and old people to play with guns (and fuck up it) seems like a plus, despite the chance to miss.

For me, personally, it's a 1 in 3 hit/miss rate without having any leveling with the pistol.

 

 Silencers will eventually be implemented too.

Nope. Silencers are a definite no from Romain. There's no promise that that won't change in the future, but for now, it's not happening.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

Nasko and myself said this to RJ a while back, not too sure if anything came of it though. I do agree with you though, the difficulty for weapons can feel a bit comical at times.

 

 

It IS a crowning moment of funny when you have a proverbial 'broad side of a barn' moment shooting at a horde of 30+ zeds with a pistol and you don't even score a skim-shot; that's happened to me a couple of times and when it does I always picture the front line of zeds trying to laugh at my antics through necrotic lungs and doing most excellent Beavis and Butthead impressions :lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As ORMtnMan pointed out, as easy as it is to hit a piece of paper at a target-shooting range, in real life - especially untrained - hitting a human-sized target in a combat situation is going to be quite difficult. I'm quoting EnigmaGrey's PZ experience:

 

For me, personally, it's a 1 in 3 hit/miss rate without having any leveling with the pistol.

 

...because I have just been looking up information on accuracy of gunfire by police officers. It's kind of a mish-mash, but drawing primarily on reports from the NYPD (which seem the most scientific in approach), it looks like 33% accuracy with a 9-mm semiautomatic handgun is only slightly worse than real-world police accuracy in firefights - which ranges from less-than-50% at seven yards or closer to less-than-10% at long range. A major contributor to that is what newspaper headline writers refer to as the "Ready-Fire-Aim" method of shooting: much less than a third of police officers reported using the sights on their firearms during discharge incidents involving a hostile human adversary. Assuming that EnigmaGrey's firearm use is somewhat more disciplined than the average Zomboid player, I'd say 1 in 3 sounds dead-on...

 

...with the caveat that not all hits are kills, of course.

 

If I were the God of Project Zomboid, I would want firearm use to imitate the simulation style of the original X-COM video game: use aiming time and relevant Moodles to determine an angular accuracy, multiply by a random number to turn direction-aimed into direction-of-bullet-trajectory, trace that line to determine what part of what person, zombie, or structure is hit, calculate damage. That might not be feasible, but I would be deliriously happy if I could shot at the zombie ten feet in front of me and accidentally kill a zombie bashing at a door a hundred feet behind it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://www.twitch.tv/syfy2k4/c/5365001

 

 

the guns work just fine. try using the mod i posted above, it makes a difference.

this character is level 3 1/2 with aiming. fully exhausted, with occasional panic

 

I agree here, I played with Real Kentucky Firearms, which upped the accuracy and damage... I would just stroll into the neighborhood with a Glock22 a box of ammo and blow away a horde with little to no problem.. missing maybe 2-3 times out of maybe 40-50 shots WITH NO EXPERIENCE...

 

I'd say the current gun mechanics are pretty good, though in my upcoming mod (shameless plug) I will be trying to code in that if you miss and there is a zombie behind you have a chance to hit them instead.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...