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Firearm overhaul!


Fortport

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BEFORE RESPONDING, READ THIS BEFORE POSTING.
 

  • Currently, firearms are really dangerous to fight with and are not very useful compared to melee weapons. Guns are not practical in-game; they're loud, difficult to reload, and ammunition is scarce. They're also very rare to find modifications for that make them more manageable.

    The only pros I can think of for using these weapons, is their raw power and ranged attacks. They also do not require any exertion of energy to use.

     
  • On the other side of the spectrum, melee weapons are more quiet, easier to repair and maintain but at the cost of eating up energy.


    So what's the problem here? In my opinion, guns are too much trouble to even want to use despite the satisfaction. Everyone is going to use melee, and ignore the guns unless they have extremely rare/hard to access modifications.

    The result is a lopsided sort of balance here. Everyone uses melee, and guns are for people who want to get killed, usually. I wish there was some other way to do this, but I don't know what exactly to suggest, other than fixing this somehow.

    What do you all think?






     
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guns used to be rather OP. it was very easy to wipe out a horde with 3 or 4 boxes of shotgun ammo, which lead RJ to do a gun overhaul back around build 28 that lead to them being the way they are now, and added the Varmint and Hunting rifles.

http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/9432-the-new-ranged-weapon-system/

 

guns are not meant to be the best way to kill the zombies, as you already pointed out with regards to their drawbacks. those who simply MUST have guns would do well to check out the Bedford Falls map, which has a very well stocked military base and 4 or 5 rooms loaded with guns and ammo, or one of the mods available

 

in future builds, when hunting comes into the game and the need for the rifles expands, then yes, we will need another minor overhaul. hopefully some skill books to help us level up our shooting when we need to get a squirrel or rabbit to eat and survive as well.

 

but for now, yeah, we really don't have much use for guns unless a HUGE horde show up at the front door and we break out the shotgun on a suicide mission

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guns used to be rather OP. it was very easy to wipe out a horde with 3 or 4 boxes of shotgun ammo, which lead RJ to do a gun overhaul back around build 28 that lead to them being the way they are now, and added the Varmint and Hunting rifles.

http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/9432-the-new-ranged-weapon-system/

 

guns are not meant to be the best way to kill the zombies, as you already pointed out with regards to their drawbacks. those who simply MUST have guns would do well to check out the Bedford Falls map, which has a very well stocked military base and 4 or 5 rooms loaded with guns and ammo, or one of the mods available

 

in future builds, when hunting comes into the game and the need for the rifles expands, then yes, we will need another minor overhaul. hopefully some skill books to help us level up our shooting when we need to get a squirrel or rabbit to eat and survive as well.

 

but for now, yeah, we really don't have much use for guns unless a HUGE horde show up at the front door and we break out the shotgun on a suicide mission

This made some amazing imagery pop into my head.

Okay, imagine this. You have a rifle, scoped and with a silencer. The silencer will eventually wear out, but you have spares.. and on the top floor of your house, you're sniping zombies separated from the others through an open window, decreasing the population assassin/hunter style.

Rifles in particular just sound like the right kind of weapon for a zombie apocalypse, just choke off all that noise and you're straight. Ammunition for it can be a rare treat, but not impossible to find.. and when you do, it's in a small, but fair quantity. You might find a little amount, but executing ten or twelve zombies without causing a ruckus, every other week, can be a practical past-time.

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Fortport, I feel as though I willed you into creation at this point.

 

I am pretty disappointed with the firearm system currently. It is true that previously the guns were OP, but now they are useless.

 

I liked smoking zeds with every shot and it gave me a goal in-game: find more ammo. Now I find guns and ammo and don't even bother. I know that I can mod it back to how it used to be, but I'd rather not.

 

I don't know what the answer is, but shooting and hitting nothing does not feel right to me.


Side note, have different character body positions been discussed before? The bit about sniping up there made me think of being able to lay in the prone.

 

Also, if a character could be knocked on his ass, that would be pretty cool.

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Fortport, I feel as though I willed you into creation at this point.

 

I am pretty disappointed with the firearm system currently. It is true that previously the guns were OP, but now they are useless.

 

I liked smoking zeds with every shot and it gave me a goal in-game: find more ammo. Now I find guns and ammo and don't even bother. I know that I can mod it back to how it used to be, but I'd rather not.

 

I don't know what the answer is, but shooting and hitting nothing does not feel right to me.

Side note, have different character body positions been discussed before? The bit about sniping up there made me think of being able to lay in the prone.

 

Also, if a character could be knocked on his ass, that would be pretty cool.

I don't think so, about the bit of sniping positions. Sitting in a chair, and balancing your gun on the window's edge could be cool, though.

More importantly, the problem I might be having is that it's so imbalanced, that guns are only really useful in one or two situations. Guns got the shit end of the stick recently, so nobody wants to ever use them. The axe can do everything the shotgun can do, not as fast, but for far, far longer.

Why snipe when you can run over to to the stragglers and chop them up? Why use the pistol on the small horde, when you can kite them, again, with an axe? Why waste bullets, when they're so precious and rare? Just use your axe! You can fix it with SCOTCH TAPE for crying out loud.

Face it. Firearms got nerfed too hard. And then to top if off, melee recently got buffed so that you can use it even more. Making all these weapons more obsolete.

It feels to me like no matter what weapons they have; assault rifles, riot shotguns, magnums.. why bother? Just use an axe.

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I have used them and they are useless unless its a life or death scenario already. They were op and now they are under powered but i'm just saying that they need to become a little more useful. besides playing alone in an empty world i have never even needed/wanted to fire off a gun. They are pointless as of now. That's just my opinion.

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Yeah, I think you're right that guns got hit somewhat too hard with the nerf bat. They used to be a good panic button; I had some fun times going nuts with a pistol, which was basically a hand held automatic headshot device. Now the only gun I bother to use is a shotgun to clear out very large hordes, and most of the time it leaves me feeling as though it was more trouble than it was worth.

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Because the guns are meant for the more dangerous and ever elusive survivor zombie. That or using the noise they make to draw huge amounts of zombies away from an area. Directly shooting zombies for any reason other then to train up accuracy skill is just a waste of ammo.

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Because the guns are meant for the more dangerous and ever elusive survivor zombie. 

Problem with that is that it still requires a bunch of shots for only 1 zed with all the misses and mystery aim time.

Directly shooting zombies for any reason other then to train up accuracy skill is just a waste of ammo.

Kind of a catch 22 here... suck at shooting -> shoot all the ammo -> hit very little -> skill goes up very slowly with couple of hits -> why bother -> suck at shooting

 

Directly shooting zombies should have reason more than training up accuracy skill.

 

IMO it was always pretty rewarding to gather up as much ammo as possible and go on a shooting spree.

 

Maybe a balance could be that if aimed long enough, there will be a hit. Kind of like with melee, if you spam you'll get tired and not kill the zed quickly, but if you charge you'll do way more damage.

 

Currently you can aim all day and still not hit shit, even as they grow closer. If I was guaranteed a hit after a certain amount of time, I think I would be happier.

 

Is there a way that accuracy could also increase with shorter distances?

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"in theory" as the size of the target gets bigger due to closer proximity, it seems like the odds of a good shot should increase.

 

but what we really need is a darn skill book that gives the multiplier......like we have in the Additional Skills Books mod

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The only thing I use guns for right now is making zombies move towards me while I go around elsewhere to escape from them.

Other than that the same problem exists on multiplayer still. There is always that one person who managed to get a shotgun (this I notice happens alot on servers that are marked RP and no kill on sight but happens on others as well) and then shoots at you to loot what you might have.

 

I was chased on one server by the same person for almost half an hour at one point til I escaped. Luckily I did not get shot but at another time I was killed 9 different character spawns in a row in wp by the same person who seemed to be running between all the spawn locations looking for players.

 

So I might only use guns lightly but in multiplayer they are still annoying when used by other players.

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I think we can all agree that if you aim at center mass, with a handgun, even ten feet away if you aim straight at the torso.. you're going to hit some part of what you're aiming at. It's not hard at that range, especially with something as big as a human/zombified human. We're normally over five feet tall, and pretty wide, so..


I think we can all agree that if you aim at center mass, with a handgun, even ten feet away if you aim straight at the torso.. you're going to hit some part of what you're aiming at. It's not hard at that range, especially with something as big as a human/zombified human. We're normally over five feet tall, and pretty wide, so..

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They're primarly long-distance people killers, rather than zombie defense weapons (except in dire cases). I find them just fine for this purpose, as they are. The only concession I'd like is to find more ammo so that they can be used a bit more often. With the recent changes to low-level accuracy, they're not as amusingly over-powered as they once were, but they aren't useless.

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They only need to increase ammo spawn. The problem is that guns to be effective, you need to have aiming lvl 1-2. Melee wepons works well with no skills and it takes a lot of time to find ammo and lvl up aiming, thata why people ignore guns most of the time.

Other aspects are balanced imo.

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On a respawning loot server in Muld you can loot a shotgun from the many convenience stores or the police station and find shotgun shells literally everywhere, if they really made the pistol a lot less accurate then the shotgun would be the easier way to train accuracy at early levels...

However, I think they probably balanced the % hit chance on zombies with that of players because hitting a player with level 1 accuracy with a pistol is a horrible ordeal, which sounds like what you guys are describing.

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System works ok.  Just stash the pistol and ammo when you have low aim skill.  Build up skill with shotgun.  Once skill is high enough switch over to the pistol.  Worked for me

That's exactly how it's supposed to be done !

lvl 0 & 1, use shotguns ; lvl 2 & 3, use pistols ; lvl 4 & 5, use rifles

What would be nice tho, would be to have the policeman profession making you start with level 2 aiming, as a policeman you should have been trained to use pistols. And maybe a relatively expensive trait, guns afficionados, giving the same +2 bonus.

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Guns are supposed to attract zombies. You aren't supposed to be a master marksman or even a decent marksman just from the simple fact you pick up a gun and guns simply can't cause tiredness, they just can't. The fact is the myth that guns are "easy to use" as a lot of people like to claim is nonsense. It takes skill and long practice to properly learn how to use a gun. Especially in a panic situation. It's not like a bat where you can just swing and get the job done with very little to no skill what so ever. In a panic situation with a fire arm most people if not all people would be terribly off base. Even the best trained soldiers have made mistakes in panic scenarios and it doesn't matter how many times you practice, sometimes your basic instincts will take over and mistakes will be made.

 

Can't wipe out hordes with shotguns or handguns. Couldn't in real life and there's no reason you should be able to in PZ. Especially since the goal of the game is to fluidly and realistically increase difficulty. 

 

In my opinion fire arms exist for two reasons and two reasons only.

 

Reason 1: Emergencies. Such as an NPC with a fire arm or a horde you can't fight off and have to lure away.

 

Reason 2: Hunting.

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Guns are supposed to attract zombies. You aren't supposed to be a master marksman or even a decent marksman just from the simple fact you pick up a gun and guns simply can't cause tiredness, they just can't. The fact is the myth that guns are "easy to use" as a lot of people like to claim is nonsense. It takes skill and long practice to properly learn how to use a gun. Especially in a panic situation. It's not like a bat where you can just swing and get the job done with very little to no skill what so ever. In a panic situation with a fire arm most people if not all people would be terribly off base. Even the best trained soldiers have made mistakes in panic scenarios and it doesn't matter how many times you practice, sometimes your basic instincts will take over and mistakes will be made.

 

Can't wipe out hordes with shotguns or handguns. Couldn't in real life and there's no reason you should be able to in PZ. Especially since the goal of the game is to fluidly and realistically increase difficulty. 

 

In my opinion fire arms exist for two reasons and two reasons only.

 

Reason 1: Emergencies. Such as an NPC with a fire arm or a horde you can't fight off and have to lure away.

 

Reason 2: Hunting.

I'll agree to disagree with some of your points. I just feel like they lack purpose, or are not as applicable. It's common sense that shooting can be difficult, but at a close distance with a human-sized target? Unless you're convulsing like mad, it's just pointing and pulling the trigger. Add some distance, and it becomes a lot more difficult. That's where skill comes in; anyone can pick up a gun and shoot something big in front of them.. but can they do that again, when they're forty yards away?

The thing about zombies, is that once they've bunched up in front of you, and all you have is a gun, you had better leg it. No matter how many times you pull the trigger, someone inexperienced and nerved up like insane is not going to headshot them all. I'm not disputing that, but to say that shooting is super hard unconditionally is bogus. I've fired weapons before. I'm not great, but I'm confident I can hit something without standing still and taking forever to aim at anything within ten feet of me.

The thing about zombie apocalypses though, is that standing in front of them and shooting them is a bad idea. You want to have some distance, and that's what separates common people from marksmen, in my opinion. I also like to think that someone who's in their mid twenties would have fired a gun before in their life, at some point.. or at least be given the option of a trait that helps it slightly.

 

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With a couple of friends, we were able to clear a nice portion of the town with guns, but it took awhile for us to plan it out. Guns aren't supposed to be OP or else the game wouldn't be challenging. They will add silencers and other weapons which will be more useful, but for now they're a strategic weapon. The devs did this on purpose or else we'd be blazing through the streets mowing down zombies. Guns are loud and attract zombies for a reason, they only solve your zed problems in specific circumstances. 

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With a couple of friends, we were able to clear a nice portion of the town with guns, but it took awhile for us to plan it out. Guns aren't supposed to be OP or else the game wouldn't be challenging. They will add silencers and other weapons which will be more useful, but for now they're a strategic weapon. The devs did this on purpose or else we'd be blazing through the streets mowing down zombies. Guns are loud and attract zombies for a reason, they only solve your zed problems in specific circumstances. 

I never wanted them to be overpowered. I want them to be useful. Balanced with melee, in terms of use, but for different situations. It's a no-brainer that guns breed more zombies, but there have to be ways to temporarily offset this, or have something else to shoot besides the undead. Animals, bandits, enemy factions.

 

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