Clothes vs monsters

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

Here is a list about the monsters and their maximum damage with melee attacks.
The list is not complete because special attacks (smg, acid etc.) are not in this list, it is too much work to collect them from the code.

Long list:

number of monster types maximal damage
37 0
5 1
6 2
3 3
8 4
6 5
17 6

                 1                                          7
               26                                          8
                 8                                          9
                 8                                         10
               18                                         12
                                    
                 3                                        13
                 6                                        14
                 1                                        15
                 6                                        16
                 2                                        18
                                    
                 1                                        19
                 5                                        20
                 2                                        22
                 1                                        23
                 5                                        24
                                    
                 1                                        25
                 2                                        26
                 2                                        27
                 1                                        28
                 3                                        30
                                    
                 2                                        32
                 1                                        35
                 1                                        40
                 2                                        42
                 1                                        62

As you can see
45 monsters deals 1-6 damage
61 monsters deals 7-12 damage
18 monsters deals 13-18 damage
14 monsters deals 19-24 damage
9 monsters deals 25-30 damage
7 monsters deals 31-62 damage

I think the damage values are fine, they should be not too high to avoid instadeath.
But next to them the protection values are still too powerful. While Izicata already halved the protection values, still too many common clothes has enough protection value to stop most attacks. A simple leather jacket with 9 protection can completely stop the attack of 80 monster types.

Please nerf it back to the 0.8 version, where the protection values was the 1/6 of the 0.A version.
That would make the armor just lessen the damage and the game would be challenging even head to toe in armor.

Edit: some more clarification.
My problem is clothes acts like a temporary shield. You wear them and you are fine until they are damaged. But it is not a problem, you can wear few layer of clothes or simly take off the damaged one and wear a new one. Or you can repair them between fights. This make the game unrealistic and too easy. Overall, you are vunerable only in the first few days against the strong monsters, after you get enough armor you can just walking around and own the place. Apocalypse become a theme park. Now the clothes and armors are the main solution against the enemies. They should not be. Skill and weapon should be decisive in a fight, armors should be just make the fight easier.

2

why not give bigger damage
something like that

45 monsters deals 7-12 damage
61 monsters deals 13-18 damage
18 monsters deals 19-24 damage
14 monsters deals 25-30 damage
16 monsters deals 31-62 damage

this will do not make big impact on new players but clotches will be less efective

3

…

Arek, I think you misread.

latogato means there are 45 monsters that deal 1-6 damage, not that… ugh…

Anyway, zombies do decent damage. We simply need to nerf armor.

4

They’ve halfed it in the experimental.

5

[quote=“latogato, post:1, topic:6559”]While Izicata already halved the protection values, still too many common clothes has enough protection value to stop most attacks.
Please nerf it back to the 0.8 version, where the protection values was the 1/6 of the 0.A version.[/quote]

Read.

6

MrgeherghagdnkjnrN

7

Although normal clothing provides good protection against a fair portion of monsters, one must keep in mind that normal clothing gets torn to shreds more often now, due to the decreased armor value. I’ve had to carry a good amount of spare rags and leather just to make sure I wouldn’t be running around naked after stumbling through a wandering horde or a large amount of anything, really.

8

My poor trenchcoat! D:

9

Yeah, that’s how I knew the lab-turret upgrade worked: took a burst (hit thrice, 8-rd burst IIRC?) and was not only hurt nontrivially, but the trenchcoat I’d scrounged was Shredded.

10

I think it’s already fine as it is.
Now you can easily get overrun if aren’t carefull. While yes, a single monster will barely do any damage if any at all. But the moment you get caught by 5-6 monsters (Im looking at you zolves) they will rapidly shred your armor off and then finish you off.

And frankly, with the current spawn system, nerfing armor even more would turn the game into a lottery. Even while set to static, the various zombified wildlife critters still spawn dynamicly, and do so very often and come in packs. And unless you are in a fortified position/have high stats/have a firearm, those packs would mean your end.

11

I have no problem with that, clothes should be torn when something bites/claws you. They are simply clothes to protect you from the elements, not against a zombie. But it is easy to make clothes more “torn resistant” in the code if needed. But my problem is, many monsters can’t hurt you through clothes and you can kill them before they can tear your clothes down to hurt you. Running in shredded clothes because you met some zombies is sound dangerous?

[quote=“GroeneAppel, post:10, topic:6559”]I think it’s already fine as it is.
Now you can easily get overrun if aren’t carefull. While yes, a single monster will barely do any damage if any at all. But the moment you get caught by 5-6 monsters (Im looking at you zolves) they will rapidly shred your armor off and then finish you off.

And frankly, with the current spawn system, nerfing armor even more would turn the game into a lottery. Even while set to static, the various zombified wildlife critters still spawn dynamicly, and do so very often and come in packs. And unless you are in a fortified position/have high stats/have a firearm, those packs would mean your end.[/quote]

I think it should be the part of the atmosphere, the world is dangerous and you can be overrun by monsters if you are not careful. You have to make an escape plan every time when you wandering into an unknown. But now the clothes make you invulnerable against the most common enemies like zombies and common armors make the other monsters laughable, a zolf pack have no chance against a character in a leather armor. A wolf pack shoudl tear a leather armored man apart if he has no proper weapon to kill them first.

Btw, i think the main problem with the zombie wildlife they are too fast. You can’t escape from them, you can’t reach a fortified/trapped position to defend yourself.

A good news: acid rain doesn’t kill wildlife anymore, so no more zombie wildlife rush after acid rain.

My problem is clothes acts like a temporary shield. You wear them and you are fine until they are damaged. But it is not a problem, you can wear few layer of clothes or simly take off the damaged one and wear a new one. Or you can repair them between fights. This make the game unrealistic and too easy. Overall, you are vunerable only in the first few days against the strong monsters, after you get enough armor you can just walking around and own the place. Apocalypse become a theme park. Now the clothes and armors are the main solution against the enemies. They should not be. Skill and weapon should be decisive in a fight, armors should be just make the fight easier.

12

well skill and weapon do realy big thing in fight with 13 mele and 12 blunt weapon and 3 dodge i can kill some common zombies without getting hit so armor is not only thing what tell how fight will end

armor is not too strong only enemy is too weak maybe give zombies a special atack what do heavy damage to armor like humans use ap bullets on armored targets, we can too buff grabber zombies by giving them a atack what can disarm or rip a piece of armor (backpack, helmet, gauntlets, plate armor, bone armor and others)

13

What i mean, if you have armor you don’t need good skill and weapon. You can kill the monsters because they can’t really hurt you, the only difference is you can kill them slower because the lack of skill and good weapon. This should be change, because the fight is not dangerous.

Monsters must be weak, this give you a chance to change your mind when something goes wrong. Monsters with high hit damage just kill you before you realise your mistake. Special armor damaging/removing attacks would be a realisation of the problem, but not a good solution.

14

I’m thinking maybe the zombie attack routine needs to change. All their attacks are bites, but shouldn’t they be grabbing you and then biting you? If you engage and get hit by a zombie, it should be harder to disengage since by all rights, if the zombie got close enough to bite you, they’re probably grabbing you first.

If you’ve played DnD 3.5, creatures could have improved grab, which activated when the creature made a successful hit with a natural weapon. Maybe give zombies a scratch attack that they use. If the scratch attack succeeds, they make a grapple attempt. If they maintain their grasp, they can attempt bites, which are more dangerous than scratches. Getting overrun should be a possibility. Maybe there should be a malus on your further resistance to grapple attempts based on the number enemies nearby or the number of grapples you’ve resisted since the beginning of the turn.

If you’ve played State of Decay on PC or XBOX, there were these huge fat zombies, that would simply grab your head and just bite the hell right out of your neck. Body shots were useless on the things, only headshots were effective.

15

My take is that zeds are a startup hostile, not an endgame one. Not all critters need to be Highly Dangerous, and there are enough folks who have difficulty with the current implementation that I think it’s OK where it is.

16

I suppose it’s safer to look at it that way. Maybe a scratch and grab zombie mod that changes the default zombie biting behavior? I’m not sure if fighting routines are exposed that way.

I feel like the grabber zombie should be a bit better at actually grabbing you effectively, though. Maybe make it so their grab attack is a relatively short-ranged attack like the whip, that can grab the target from 1 or 2 tiles away?

17

Yeah a single zombie should not be dangerous to a single character, but they really ought to crowd attack you better. So that getting surrounded by zombies would still be dangerous even if you are wearing armor. Because right now theres not much difference between being attacked by a single zombie or by three if you are wearing armor, three successive attacks should at least give you a decent chance of breaking your stance and dropping you to the floor.

18

Yeah a single zombie should not be dangerous to a single character, but they really ought to crowd attack you better. So that getting surrounded by zombies would still be dangerous even if you are wearing armor. Because right now theres not much difference between being attacked by a single zombie or by three if you are wearing armor, three successive attacks should at least give you a decent chance of breaking your stance and dropping you to the floor.[/quote]

Absent MA such as Karate or Zui Quan, you should only get one dodge and one block, IIRC. That may be worth fixing, as it would definitely make crowds more dangerous. (Third and subsequent hits going direct to armor, etc.)

19

Oh I am also pretty sure that you only get one dodge and one block, however the game could definitely be less generous than that if you are say wearing plate armor and surrounded by 4 zombies. (hint: you would fall to the ground and get clawed to death IRL). Which could be translated into the game into a chance to fall somewhat factoring strength and dexterity and a something percent chance that an attack on a downed character will ignore armor coverages.

20

Not sure if this is possible, but maybe mods to allow varying levels of armor effectiveness? Some people want a consistently challenging game, let them have armor at 1/6. I like it where it’s at, personally (fun, occasionally scary, mostly pretty easy unless 2 shockers start paralyzing me), and I suppose there’s folks who’d like it where it was before.