Breaking the "more accurate weapons are always better" disfunction

[tarburst98]

you don’t need to kite hulks to appreciate a good opener. as in, aim to max confidence with something big like a .50 and then wait until the hulk is nearly on top of you, then fire for a headshot, then drop the gun and pull out a melee weapon

[kevin.granade]

Wait-wait-wait, but isn’t aiming/recoil tracked “in general” for the PC, not versus each individual monster?

Nope, if you shift your aim to a new target it resets. Recoil is a misnomer at this point, I re-used it to represent, “intended aim isn’t on target” when i added aiming instead of juggling two variables that do essentially th e same thing.

you don’t need to kite hulks to appreciate a good opener. as in, aim to max confidence with something big like a .50 and then wait until the hulk is nearly on top of you, then fire for a headshot, then drop the gun and pull out a melee weapon

That’s exactly the kind of thing we want to encourage, the only part of Coolthulu’s scenario that was problematic was the part where the player kited away and repeated the process.

It’s not directly about dps - more like “dps concentration”.

The term your looking for is burst damage btw.

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:17, topic:14067”]Not necessarily headshots themselves, but the huge increase in damage with accuracy of the hit certainly does and massively so.

My typo didn’t help there (stupid autocorrect), i agree headshots and “good” damage bonuses could stand to be scaled down.[/quote]
After more thought, I’d be happy to ditch headshots entirely, they’re a game-ism.

[Treah]

After more thought, I'd be happy to ditch headshots entirely, they're a game-ism.

Headshots have pretty much been a part of the zombie experience in pretty much most if not all medium they are in. Most of the time a headshot was the only way to kill them.

[tarburst98]

i agree, aiming for the head with zombies is more of a trope of zombies then a game thing.

[Coolthulhu]

If you’re kiting hulks at will you’ve already won and nothing we can do about ranged balance is going to fix it.

You don’t need “infinite” kiting - just force it to go through a car or a shrub long enough to burst fire at it near point-blank range without eating a fist.
And regardless, this is an incredibly important - vital - even part of the ranged weapon balance: if the best way to use ranged weapons is one aimed burst fire, then drop the gun and draw a melee weapon, then assault rifles will inevitably overshadow all the other gun types.

Feedback sure, but you already know how I feel about that kind of perfect information dump.

As long as the actual perfect info is available in some usable debug way and used for balancing, the info displayed to players can be somewhat butchered. For example, thresholded into categories that are (this is very important) described to players in objective terms (“about twice as long”, not “very long, like, this long [------]”).

Nope, if you shift your aim to a new target it resets.

There may be a bug where this doesn’t update (fast enough?) - if you switch to a next monster, it displays accuracy stats for the old one until you aim at least once.

Headshots have pretty much been a part of the zombie experience in pretty much most if not all medium they are in. Most of the time a headshot was the only way to kill them.

Could be given a gimmick like auto-pulping zeds of medium sizes if the killing shot is a headshot, auto-killing zeds (and only zeds) if they aren’t hulks or brutes or something else like that.
As long as it doesn’t work against the serious zeds where it really changes the balance of things.

[DeWolf]

To be honest I do not entirely understand what you are trying to do. However what it sounds like you are doing is making it so rifles are doing a job that shotguns and handguns SHOULD be doing. What it sounds like you want to do is make it so literally the BEST USE of a RIFLE that is meant for killing stuff from a fairly considerable distance being used as a one time “good” burst damage on something that sounds to be about the size of an average car near face to face then dropping said gun to pull out say a katana or something similar. Am I reading you right or could you please explain a bit better?

[Coolthulhu]

However what it sounds like you are doing is making it so rifles are doing a job that shotguns and handguns SHOULD be doing.

No, I’m stating that the problem is that rifles do that. That’s the problem, not the direction of change.

[DeWolf]

[quote=“DeWolf, post:26, topic:14067”]However what it sounds like you are doing is making it so rifles are doing a job that shotguns and handguns SHOULD be doing.

No, I’m stating that the problem is that rifles do that. That’s the problem, not the direction of change.[/quote]
Thank you for clarifying.

[kevin.granade]

After more thought, I'd be happy to ditch headshots entirely, they're a game-ism.

Headshots have pretty much been a part of the zombie experience in pretty much most if not all medium they are in. Most of the time a headshot was the only way to kill them.

We already don’t follow this trope, so that part isn’t really a change.

If you’re kiting hulks at will you’ve already won and nothing we can do about ranged balance is going to fix it.

You don’t need “infinite” kiting - just force it to go through a car or a shrub long enough to burst fire at it near point-blank range without eating a fist.

This sounds like it’s working as intended, you’re interacting wirh the environment to give you an advantage over a fast and tanky opponent, you’re using strategy (interaction with obstacles) to mitigate a major weakness of rifles (slow aim time).

And regardless, this is an incredibly important - vital - even part of the ranged weapon balance: if the best way to use ranged weapons is one aimed burst fire, then drop the gun and draw a melee weapon, then assault rifles will inevitably overshadow all the other gun types.

If you have wide open lines of sight and are in control of your engagement range, rifles should overshadow all other guns, they’re simply better in that scenario.
The goal of this proposal is to widen the niche for pistols, shotguns and smgs. It does this by establishing a zone near the player where rifles become ineffective because they can’t aim fast enough to keep up with most monsters, the more “dodgy” the monster, the larger that zone is.
Inside that zone, its beneficial to switch to a smg, shotgun or pistol because they can aim faster than the monster can dodge, and can reliably hit at that range.

Feedback sure, but you already know how I feel about that kind of perfect information dump.

As long as the actual perfect info is available in some usable debug way and used for balancing

Certainly.

Nope, if you shift your aim to a new target it resets.

There may be a bug where this doesn't update (fast enough?) - if you switch to a next monster, it displays accuracy stats for the old one until you aim at least once.

This is intentional, so you can use the aim interface to look around without resetting your aim.

[Coolthulhu]

This sounds like it’s working as intended, you’re interacting with the environment to give you an advantage over a fast and tanky opponent, you’re using strategy (interaction with obstacles) to mitigate a major weakness of rifles (slow aim time).

If you have wide open lines of sight and are in control of your engagement range, rifles should overshadow all other guns, they’re simply better in that scenario.
The goal of this proposal is to widen the niche for pistols, shotguns and smgs. It does this by establishing a zone near the player where rifles become ineffective because they can’t aim fast enough to keep up with most monsters, the more “dodgy” the monster, the larger that zone is.
Inside that zone, its beneficial to switch to a smg, shotgun or pistol because they can aim faster than the monster can dodge, and can reliably hit at that range.

At the moment there are 5 ranges (more like modes) of engagement:

[ul][li]Sniping - this one is only available to very strong characters, who only really need it for turrets[/li]
[li]Short range aimed burst damage - this one is dominated by rifles, as you only get one such burst if you can’t kite a lot, due to very punishing dispersion mechanics. It is also only useful against targets strong enough to be worth the ammo and wielding the gun[/li]
[li]Harassment (of hulks), wearing down acid and shock zeds - requires kiting[/li]
[li]Assassination - this doesn’t require anything from the gun, but benefits from it being completely silent[/li]
[li]Too close for ranged, need to use melee[/li][/ul]

The problem here is that there is no real role for non-rifles. Well, they can fill in for when rifle is having a bad day, but that’s not enough to warrant having them as separate skills (especially if you can just craft a pneumatic rifle).

[ul][li]Pistols fire single shots fast. But that’s inferior to proper burst fire, except for ammo conservation. They lose all accuracy as soon as zombies get in melee and there is no way to counter that.[/li]
[li]SMGs are mini-rifles with burst damage too low for hulks, but ammo too expensive to burst trash. Which turns them into long-range pistols. With most of the disadvantages of using pistols, but slower single fire.[/li]
[li]Shotguns are short range, non-burst rifles. They do not have a role not shared by pistols.[/li][/ul]

Without giving those guns some new roles, rifles will still rule.
Problem with those roles is that using guns is expensive, so this role can’t cover mopping up trash. And dangerous stuff requires you to kill it fast, hence burst damage. And burst damage at range is not very good because accuracy is a linear sum of angles rather than a natural, normal distribution. Not to mention that after the first burst, the whole zed city rushes in to contribute, so the more you delay it the better.

There is always the choice of melee against weaker stuff. This choice won’t go away until armor values are nerfed enough that common zeds punch through cloth armor (buffing zed damage could be done too, but it wouldn’t fix the primary cause, just the symptoms).

I’m not saying the idea is bad or not worth implementing, it’s just that it’s certainly not a panaceum for ranged weapon balance problems. And it should be generally more about buffing weak weapons than nerfing rifles.

This is intentional, so you can use the aim interface to look around without resetting your aim.

Try this: spawn two monsters (preferably non-moving), aim for one fully, then switch aim and immediately fire.
Not only will the attack against the new monster be made with full aim, this full aim will also be retained (minus recoil) for further shots.
I didn’t know if it would work like that, but now I checked and I’m certain it’s a bug.

[Logrin]

Been quite awhile since I’ve played, but…

Possible Solutions:

• Implement a ‘sweet-spot’ for target acquisition on firearms. Aim within these tiles accrues more rapidly. Outside this range (too close/too far) aiming is worth less per tick. To generalize, without mentioning some notable exceptions:
  *Small maneuverable weapons like pistols and sawn-offs are ideal for when things devolve into a melee/close quarters
  *SMGs are the next step up, a middleman you’d want to rely on from close to mid range
  *Rifles are mid to long range, but their length becomes a liability when you suddenly have a monster grappling you.

This should all be modified by weapon mods as well. Slapping a high magnification scope onto a weapon is going to make going for a snap shot on something close disorienting (Extending the max/min range for that sweet spot) just like a shortened barrel is going to mean the opposite.

You could also make certain weapons have a very high base accuracy that drops quickly at distance and vice versa.

Also, do heavier, slower rounds or non-penetrative shots like bean bags knock enemies down/back yet? Or is it just a stun? Pretty much anything you spit out of a shotgun should knock a zed prone.

Likewise, rounds with high velocity and penetration could be tracked after their initial target (Maybe like explosion shrapnel?) possibly wounding additional targets or traveling through flimsy barriers.

The highly variable damage ranges are the biggest culprit here though, and I’d actually be happier with a flatter spread more dependent on the firearm and ammunition. I might be the minority here but I think the game would be better if we did away with critical hits entirely.

Although, as a caveat that’s not necessarily something to be considered in game design: Military rifles are workhorses. There is a reason most other weapons are described in the specific scenarios in which they out preform them. All you need is a good rifle.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

Could attach critical chance to creatures as a vulnerability stat, with criticals inflicting custom conditions specific to each creature

[tarburst98]

also, big thing is to be careful about only giving nerfs. if you nerf a thing, and then when a new meta arises and you nerf that too, and the next one, and the next one, etc. eventually NOTHING will be useful at all ever.

[Litppunk]

Headshots don’t make sense in the fashion they are currently used. If your having to worry about missing, then your aiming center-mass, and headshot is about as likely as grazing probably less.

If your aiming for headshot, then the chance of doing any damage that is not insta-kill, or at least very critical (upper chest has lots of vitals, and for guns thats extra shock value via hydraulic displacement (actual term isn’t coming to me right now) Now CDDA zombies probably wouldn’t be very effected by that, but Im not entirely sure.

Anyways as is, headshot as it is currently only makes sense in creatures where the head is centermass from your perspective, such as a scorpion, Bee facing straight towards you etc…

more on topic this would mean that shotguns (shot) are more likely to get headshots against unarmored heads when going for normal shots while slugs would be great for knockback & knockover & stun against those not immune.

Pistols would be great at switching targets quickly with minimal penatly

would likely mean having to scrap the aim system (I think I remember kevin saying something about aiming being changed so that misses continue on and can hit other stuff)
this is where SMG’s SHOULD excel is at hitting mobs/ hordes by aiming for the middle, and getting shots hitting several of the group. The more tightly packed, the more likely that peripheral targets will take damage.

Also, the spray and pray method should be helpful when aiming is not an option at close range. All in all, the SMG SHOULD be the least remarkable category, except for the ability to fire semi-full auto -> full auto with less recoil/ penalty than other weapons at close range.

reduced dodge for enemies in high move penalty areas (except for small/ Easy_to_miss type creatures) should help keep guns from being viewed as ‘inferior’ to melee weapons across the board, and cement them in a possition of excellent for holding fortified locations while the “sweet spot” mechanic suggested by logrin helps keep the weapons from competing with each other too much.

I also like the idea of (overkill) headshots preventing revive for zeds. I have difficulty seeing a liquidated brain being something that the glob can just put back together like humpty dumpty. While small caliber damage headshots (.22) are still insta-kill to unarmored heads, also have the fastest revive time. Especially if the glob is keeping track of DNA. (note that this could be nicked as well, for balance reasons, or if guns are still believed ‘inferior’ on the grounds that the brain has the greatest DNA diversity in the human body.)

well, thats my obnoxious 2¢

[DeWolf]

I could of sworn in one of the experimental I saw a gun stat that said either maximum effective range or just effective range. What happened was that the weapon itself would have a further max range but the effective range was the maximum distance where the shot was most accurate. Or at least that’s how I think it worked i am pretty sure it was in one of the experimental sad the the current aiming system was being implemented.

[ZoneWizard]

Are we assuming zombies are even trying to dodge? Because simple movement is not erratic enough to be considered a “dodge”. Even stumbling around isn’t a dodge movement due to the fact that the critter will still be on a rather intuitive course that the person holding the weapon can acclimate without even trying. Hulks are also just too darn big to even miss by accident. Telling us they can dodge by sporadic movement is a bit of a stretch. For example. Missing a Rhino at 20 paces. Yeah sure it can kinda run fast, but if you miss THAT, you are literally blind or have broken fingers or something similar. A walking rhino should not be something you miss easily.

I’m also a little confused at what we are discussing here. The only thing that I find really off at present is long range weapons to short. Example, a shotgun should be able to shoot across a street accurately. All the while a pistol as well. Rifles should have crap aim at short range and pistols should only have short-medium range with longer distance damage debuffs. Longer the distance should equate to scaled down damage for pistol, SMG and shot. Smooth bore slugs remain at high damage but low accuracy. Slugs in rifled barrel should be similar to a standard crappy rifle,but with high damage.

Whats all this talk over overhauling something that pretty much already gives us reasonable game function. Just cover my 2nd paragraph and see it as a fine tune rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water because people do not all agree with what we already have. -_-

[kevin.granade]

Regular zombies would have very poor dodging ability, mostly because they’re very slow, but it would contribute some, especially if you have poor skills in the first place.

You seem to be treating this as a, “you either hit or you don’t” situation, its not. Dodging, injury, weapon accuracy, lighting level, time to aim, and more contribute to your accuracy, and we differentiate between grazing hits, regular hits, good hits, and (for now) headshots. While it might be extremely easy to land a hit on a hulk due to size, that’s different than getting a good center-of-mass (and therefore does-lots-of-damage) hit, and the dodging might just be the thing that makes that difference.

If you’re hunting rhino, you aren’t trying to hit it just anywhere, youre trying to hit it somewhere that does enough damage to drop it before it kills you, which is a surprisingly small area with most weapons. It certainly makes a big difference whether the rhino in question is standing still or charging you at full speed.

I’m also a little confused at what we are discussing here. The only thing that I find really off at present is long range weapons to short. Example, a shotgun should be able to shoot across a street accurately. All the while a pistol as well. Rifles should have crap aim at short range and pistols should only have short-medium range with longer distance damage debuffs.

Enforcing those kinds if constraints is exactly what led to this proposal, in particular, how do we make, " Rifles should have crap aim at short range" happen? Its total nonsense to just stick something in the code that says, “rifles get less accurate the closer the target is”, and it’s impossible to make aiming at nearby targets slow enough that rifles act as intended at short range without also making them impossible to use at long range.

Whats all this talk over overhauling something that pretty much already gives us reasonable game function. Just cover my 2nd paragraph and see it as a fine tune rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water because people do not all agree with what we already have. -_-

I don’t know where you’re getting, “overhaul” from, the core proposals here are:
Adjust how dodge works to make it interfere with aiming instead of being a last-instant chance to spoil the players aim.
Flatten damage bonuses for good+ hits, potentially eliminating headshots.
Adjust aim speeds on a lot of weapons to fit them into their niches properly.

This is intentional, so you can use the aim interface to look around without resetting your aim.

Try this: spawn two monsters (preferably non-moving), aim for one fully, then switch aim and immediately fire. Not only will the attack against the new monster be made with full aim, this full aim will also be retained (minus recoil) for further shots. I didn't know if it would work like that, but now I checked and I'm certain it's a bug.

Agreed, that’s for sure a bug.

[Litppunk]

Hmm. I had not thought about the potential difficulty in setting up a “more difficult to aim closer than effective range” My first thought was that dodging should be more effective at closer ranges, but that is actually the opposite of what would happen, and would be absolutely dreadful results and basically the exact opposite of what is desired.

It is weapon side, and more specifically related to the sights. So perhaps the sights themselves should be given a soft effective range…or perhaps range modifier?

Ramble about panic firing at extra short ranges (aimed at rifles)
The default would be hip-fire, with upgraded versions for learned lessons (from books and skillled survivors) such as trained hip-fire and barrel sighting (as in looking down the barrel without sights, not through the barrel…) as well as iron sights/ other open sights being the overriding default where available.

mostly back on sights idea
From there the sights you place on it (scope) modify (or set?) the effective (sight) range of the gun, with penalties the further from that range (over max or under minimum) you go. With enemies too close (secondary min? new stat related to panic?) resulting in iron sight or blind fire depending on how panicky/ best aim available.

Hmm. I always overcomplicate these things. So probably just…

[ul][li]add, effective range min and max for base weapon w/ stock ironsights no sights[/li]
[li]change sights Json to have a range min and max modifier stat [/li]
[li]Add Json stat to ammo for modifying effective range[/li]
[li](optional? step 2?) Add place for (additional?) penalty…equation for close range (gun weight, balance bulk, secondary or lack thereof sight & location etc…) veering into too realistic and topheavy for minimul or negative gain.[/li]
[li]change Json ammo range category adjusting effective range(not sight) probably max only (shotgun shot, pistol & other lower powder & mass ammo) and equation for diminishing accuracy/damage Note: should be hard cap, or option for hard cap if not already[/li][/ul]

setup Json categories
set equation for over max and under min effective sight range penalties, probably different equations
Set/ change equation for effective weapon range to reflect sight changes

Then the panic firing can always be added later or scrapped entirely, or just be counted in the aim penalties unless hardened perk or similar is in effect.

That look about right? I don’t actually know code but I think I understand how it works well enough for this to be fairly close layout for the final thing. Let me know how far off I am, or where you think I have a misconception on how things work… probably everywhere.

[kevin.granade]

Hmm. I had not thought about the potential difficulty in setting up a “more difficult to aim closer than effective range” My first thought was that dodging should be more effective at closer ranges, but that is actually the opposite of what would happen, and would be absolutely dreadful results and basically the exact opposite of what is desired.

No, dodging being more effective is exactly what we want. What you may be misding here is that the difficulty of getting a hit also decreases with distance to the target, so in principle, they balance out. But if you throw in aiming speed you end up with a situation where very accurate but low aim speed weapons are great only above a certain range.

[Adragis029]

[quote=“Litppunk, post:38, topic:14067”]Hmm. I had not thought about the potential difficulty in setting up a “more difficult to aim closer than effective range” My first thought was that dodging should be more effective at closer ranges, but that is actually the opposite of what would happen, and would be absolutely dreadful results and basically the exact opposite of what is desired.

No, dodging being more effective is exactly what we want. What you may be misding here is that the difficulty of getting a hit also decreases with distance to the target, so in principle, they balance out. But if you throw in aiming speed you end up with a situation where very accurate but low aim speed weapons are great only above a certain range.[/quote]

Which is what we want, right? Preventing people aiming at zombies fifteen feet away with a 16x scope?