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Visual representation of "charging" attacks.


Fortport

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READ THIS POST FIRST BEFORE REPLYING! DO NOT SKIM OVER THIS, PLEASE; READ EVERY DETAIL.

I made a similar post to this in the "exhaustion feedback" topic. This mechanic has always been vague and difficult to understand unless it was explained to you via a text document. This almost means, every time, that if someone new doesn't known about the tutorial they'll consequently miss out on this mechanic.

There's no visible representation of this, in-game, audibly or visibly of the science happening. It's no wonder everyone doesn't understand.

Your character stands and attacks the same regardless if he's "charged" or spam-attacking. So here are my suggestions. There are numerous ways we can accomplish this without having text notifications in the corner of your game, or some immersion-breaking gauge-bar on the side.
 

  • More or less your character visibly winding up with their weapon, and becoming slightly rigid when it's "charged." When you attack from this stance, and connect, the screen jerks and the hit-sound is more crunchy and audible, thus voicing its effectiveness.. and ultimately making this technique more satisfying and easy to notice.
     
  • The cursor could also have a reticule around it that, when charging, fills to the edge and pulses when ready.
     
  • When wound up with your weapon, the character can begin rotating his weapon subtly in a batter fashion, looking more ready for that perfect, solid swing.
     

Zombies, when hit by a charged attack, could recoil with a different animation. Like they got hit really hard, compared to your standard swing. For example, their head snapping to the side on impact, with their torso rotating. Anything to let the player know that this is working more than erratically spam-clicking.


 

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I think you two are on different pages.

 

Jack you're saying there should be a bone shattering sound when the player is wound up. That would be cool but we still wouldn't know exactly when that would be without visual aid.

 

Fortport is saying we need a visual cue as to when fully wound up would be.

 

Both are good ideas.

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I think you two are on different pages.

 

Jack you're saying there should be a bone shattering sound when the player is wound up. That would be cool but we still wouldn't know exactly when that would be without visual aid.

 

Fortport is saying we need a visual cue as to when fully wound up would be.

 

Both are good ideas.

Why not both? Having more intensely violent sounds shows the player that it hurts a lot more, alongside the zombie flying away with a different animation. It's really voicing to the player what's going on without a text-box, and that's what I'm here for right now. It's what a newbie will understand, and it's what experts would love to see, in my opinion.

The further we drift away from filling gauges and such, the better, since the devs obviously would've done that by now if they wanted it. Something like this might be right up their alley; just by using simple animation, you tell the player exactly what they can do without breaking them out of the game to read a pop-up. Save the pop-ups for beginner mode, right?

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Well I mean, hopefully one day the person would learn the rhythm of the swings and they wouldn't need the visual indicator anymore. It would be like drumming, wait however long before giving it another pound, wouldn't take long for the brain to memorize it and just start doing it correct every time.

Yup! Great for beginners, just new meat/satisfaction for experts.

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Never have been a fan of visual indicators for this thing, as it's pretty intuitive as it is . . . enough so that it's literally just "hold rmb for 1 second, then swing." There's just no real complexity to it.

But I understand if people frustrated about it.

It's not that it's complex, it's that it's vague, sorry. People do not see the difference, or even know that spamming is less effective. Hence "wind-up" during that second which you wait, and all this other stuff to make it seem like it has more oomph, because most people can't tell.

Apparently newbies everywhere are spam-clicking, getting frustrated, and blaming the game instead of themselves; this is bad. Things need to be clear to the player so that when they die it's their own fault or carelessness.

If they die because of unclear mechanics, they will think they're playing an awful game, or that Project Zomboid's combat is terrible/underwhelming when it really isn't, at its core.. with the currently hidden charge attack.

If you consider this suggestion though, and it's implemented.. the game will become that much less like an arcade beat-em-up to new players. They will understand that it "requires effort to puncture a zombie skull!"

All without reading the guide, flaming on the forums, or debating with people. And that's how it should be, in my opinion.

 

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Never have been a fan of visual indicators for this thing, as it's pretty intuitive as it is . . . enough so that it's literally just "hold rmb for 1 second, then swing." There's just no real complexity to it.

But I understand if people frustrated about it.

It's not that it's complex, it's that it's vague, sorry. People do not see the difference, or even know that spamming is less effective. That is the whole purpose for this suggestion, to be crystal clear to newbies that spamming is not as good as charging. People who are not told these things will never know, and then when they're punished for something they can't see, they blame something else.

It's not that the system needs changed, it's that it needs to be represented somehow with either HUD, gameplay, or animation. That's just what I think, though.

 

But you can see the result . . . to spam means to hit a dozen times. To not spam means to kill in 1-2 shots.

That they don't know is certainly a problem, even with the survival guide telling them so.

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Never have been a fan of visual indicators for this thing, as it's pretty intuitive as it is . . . enough so that it's literally just "hold rmb for 1 second, then swing." There's just no real complexity to it.

But I understand if people frustrated about it.

My problem is mostly with the firearms. It's a pretty whacky and random system, especially with the update.

 

IRL, I know what I'm doing with a gun. When a zed is directly in front of me and I hold the RMB down for eternity "taking aim" and kill one behind him at an insane angle it is very frustrating. I don't know the required time to aim and it's very hard to gauge because of the constant misses.

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Never have been a fan of visual indicators for this thing, as it's pretty intuitive as it is . . . enough so that it's literally just "hold rmb for 1 second, then swing." There's just no real complexity to it.

But I understand if people frustrated about it.

It's not that it's complex, it's that it's vague, sorry. People do not see the difference, or even know that spamming is less effective. That is the whole purpose for this suggestion, to be crystal clear to newbies that spamming is not as good as charging. People who are not told these things will never know, and then when they're punished for something they can't see, they blame something else.

It's not that the system needs changed, it's that it needs to be represented somehow with either HUD, gameplay, or animation. That's just what I think, though.

But you can see the result . . . to spam means to hit a dozen times. To not spam means to kill in 1-2 shots.

That they don't know is certainly a problem, even with the survival guide telling them so.

You see the result if you know charging is a thing. Most players, including myself, just initially assumed random health on zombies (is that the case?) was the sole reason for some of them going down quicker. When I first heard about charging swings I was skeptical because there was absolutely no clear indication of it in-game whatsoever.

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Never have been a fan of visual indicators for this thing, as it's pretty intuitive as it is . . . enough so that it's literally just "hold rmb for 1 second, then swing." There's just no real complexity to it.

But I understand if people frustrated about it.

 

How long does it take to charge a swing before it's fully effective? One second? Five? Ten? How are you supposed to know whether you continue to charge a swing while moving or only standing still? There is no way of knowing, and the game gives you no clues. It's not at all intuitive for a new player. All they can do is experiment and try to figure it out for themselves, assuming they even bother to read through all the tips in order to figure out that charging swings is a thing to begin with.

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Never have been a fan of visual indicators for this thing, as it's pretty intuitive as it is . . . enough so that it's literally just "hold rmb for 1 second, then swing." There's just no real complexity to it.

But I understand if people frustrated about it.

 

How long does it take to charge a swing before it's fully effective? One second? Five? Ten? How are you supposed to know whether you continue to charge a swing while moving or only standing still? There is no way of knowing, and the game gives you no clues. It's not at all intuitive for a new player. All they can do is experiment and try to figure it out for themselves, assuming they even bother to read through all the tips in order to figure out that charging swings is a thing to begin with.

 

You'll notice I've already answered this above, Florin. I'm not sure why people hate experimentation so much.

Nothing is going to be intuitive to new players if they refuse to even read a 4-click guide.

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Intuitive means something can be easily picked up by doing it. Without reading the tips most players probably wouldn't even be aware the attack charging mechanic existed. It is completely unintuitive in that it's invisible to the player, aside from the damage you deal to enemies, which without foreknowledge could quite easily be attributed to random chance (see above).

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You'll notice I've already answered this above, Florin. I'm not sure why people hate experimentation so much.

Nothing is going to be intuitive to new players if they refuse to even read a 4-click guide.

 

They won't though. Ideally, all tutorial aspects should be interactive and tell you what to do at the time you are doing it. Obviously that's not something that can happen overnight, and a lot of early access games leave that kind of stuff to last.

 

Unfortunately, you can put the information there but a large amount of people aren't going to let a bit of text hold them up from their playing experience, and the few that do bother to look at it will probably skim it. The modern user isn't interested in game manuals and instruction text, they want to pick up and play so you need to teach them how to play while they are doing it.

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You'll notice I've already answered this above, Florin. I'm not sure why people hate experimentation so much.

Nothing is going to be intuitive to new players if they refuse to even read a 4-click guide.

 

They won't though. Ideally, all tutorial aspects should be interactive and tell you what to do at the time you are doing it. Obviously that's not something that can happen overnight, and a lot of early access games leave that kind of stuff to last.

 

Unfortunately, you can put the information there but a large amount of people aren't going to let a bit of text hold them up from their playing experience, and the few that do bother to look at it will probably skim it. The modern user isn't interested in game manuals and instruction text, they want to pick up and play so you need to teach them how to play while they are doing it.

 

Absolutely. And this is why this suggestion is so important to me. You want to explain as much as you can without tutorials. If you need tutorials to explain everything, then your system isn't clear enough to normally understand, but only especially here since it's COMBAT. Which is kind of the main thing that should be simple to get, and it just isn't.

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Absolutely. And this is why this suggestion is so important to me. You want to explain as much as you can without tutorials. If you need tutorials to explain everything, then your system isn't clear enough to normally understand, but only especially here since it's COMBAT. Which is kind of the main thing that should be simple to get, and it just isn't.

 

I disagree with this point. I don't think that it's required for game makers to make a game as intuitive as possible. It's a good choice in many situations, but it shouldn't be a must in all. Tutorials are a staple working feature that do their job well enough. I couldn't imagine even trying to play Victoria 2 without going through the tutorials. This isn't a hack and slash easy-going game and I do think that tutorials, wiki and such are a part of it.

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Absolutely. And this is why this suggestion is so important to me. You want to explain as much as you can without tutorials. If you need tutorials to explain everything, then your system isn't clear enough to normally understand, but only especially here since it's COMBAT. Which is kind of the main thing that should be simple to get, and it just isn't.

 

I disagree with this point. I don't think that it's required for game makers to make a game as intuitive as possible. It's a good choice in many situations, but it shouldn't be a must in all. Tutorials are a staple working feature that do their job well enough. I couldn't imagine even trying to play Victoria 2 without going through the tutorials. This isn't a hack and slash easy-going game and I do think that tutorials, wiki and such are a part of it.

 

I agree, and told my opinion wrong. What I mean to say, is that this is one of the things that should be intuitive. Everything else requiring a wiki is reasonable, but combat shouldn't be rocket science to figure out if you're charging an attack or not. And presently, it's kind of hard to guess without already knowing. It's simple, understanding it should be too.. so charging your hits, should be easy to tell.

Think of it this way. You're playing an arcade game. There's punching, kicking, and blocking. Now what if kicking looked the same as punching, even though it were stronger? A newbie would just think they're punching, all the time, despite kicking every now and then. So they would think there's less moves, and therefore, less variety. Less technique and skill, more boring.

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