Amazing fucking reply there. Is that the shittiest you’ve got or am I going to get even more disappointed in a moment?
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If it is that much reality based, why not make skills for each of the edge cases, and not so edge cases like cross bows?
I mean, I understand going either the abstract way of having everything in “small arms” and “heavy weapons”, or going down defining new skill for each special subset of weapons because realism.
But for example crossbows and shotguns with a rifled barrel and/or slugs are very common in-game, and they are in skills that don’t describe their usage in real life, but rather they are in the closest skill that you can compare them to.
Wouldn’t we need to make new skills for each weapon if we strive for mechanics that meaningfully represent how things really work?
Edit:
Also reading this thread and Breaking the “more accurate weapons are always better” disfunction thread. I’m reading a lot that rifles shouldn’t be accurate at close range. Why would rifles be bad at short ranges?
One of the reasons why assault rifles were and are so popular, is because they have very good range and still perform very well in close quarter combats while still being semi or automatic.
Plus you have battle rifles and carbines. And carbines were design exclusively with the idea of short range engagement while still retaining the high caliber size of a rifle.
“Rifle” only means a gun that has a rifling in their barrel. Handguns have rifling too and are not grouped under rifle in-game.
We would need more skills unless we want to still have dysfunction and un-realistic and counter-intuitive behavior.
Don’t know if this should be in this thread or the other one as there is a lot of overlap, so I’m posting it in here.
[quote=“Alec White, post:22, topic:14077”]Also reading this thread and Breaking the “more accurate weapons are always better” disfunction thread. I’m reading a lot that rifles shouldn’t be accurate at close range. Why would rifles be bad at short ranges?
One of the reasons why assault rifles were and are so popular, is because they have very good range and still perform very well in close quarter combats while still being semi or automatic.
Plus you have battle rifles and carabines. And carabines were design exclusively with the idea of short range engagement while still retaining the high caliber size of a rifle.
“Rifle” only means a gun that has a rifling in their barrel. Handguns have rifling too and are not grouped under rifle in-game.
We would need more skills unless we want to still have dysfunction and un-realistic and counter-intuitive behavior.
Don’t know if this should be in this thread or the other one as there is a lot of overlap, so I’m posting it in here.[/quote]
I think when people refer to close-range rifle inaccuracy, they are referring to the physically long rifles which require two hands, which would be easier for zombies to grab/melee away, making aim near impossible.
Amazing fucking reply there. Is that the shittiest you’ve got or am I going to get even more disappointed in a moment?[/quote]
I cant predict your reactions, no. For example i cant fathom why you would think I’d be remotely ok with replacing a system that strives to represent how firearms are actually used with one based on arbitrary properties of the weapons. Of course I’m not going to look into it any further, its precisely the kind of dumb over-abstraction that pisses me off to no end in other games.
[quote author=Alec White link=topic=14821.msg303762#msg303762 date=1501836778]
If it is that much reality based, why not make skills for each of the edge cases, and not so edge cases like cross bows?
[/skill]
For practical reasons, proliferation of skills does have a cost in terms of gameplay, realism, and development effort. Its good enough right now, but further work would extend the system, not shrink it.
E.g. I wouldn’t be opposed to adding another tier of stats specifically for weapons to represent familiarity with the specific weapon, it just hasn’t been a priority.
What are the differences in using one gun vs another?
From my own experience when we boil it down to its basics it comes down to loading, how it is held, and adjusting aiming to its range.
Seems like very small differences when it comes to splitting up their use that really have no bearing on the actual gun since holding and aiming a hunting rifle is different from holding and aiming a AK vs a shotgun, yet they are in the same category. But these differences are marginal at best even when you cross to another category. I can hold a P90 and an AR-15 the same way aim the same way and still be reasonably sure I will hit what I want. The same goes for something like an Uzi and any pistol.
So either the system needs to be expanded to ridiculous amounts of skills to represent the variety of weapons on a scale that not many categorize them as or combined to better represent the fact that the skill in using one gun crosses over to using another gun almost entirely.
No one that can use a rifle suddenly loses all ability to shoot because they started using a pistol for the first time when common sense is added to the equation.
These guns don’t fire the same way but every skill in handling them is the same.
That’s what the marksmanship skill is for. I personally don’t use guns often, so I can’t say for sure if it works well enough. Maybe marksmanship could use a buff.
If marksmanship is for the basics then what are the non basic skills being emulated by the other skills?
Stance, recoil management, et cetera that is specific to each weapon type. Managing a pistol’s recoil and managing a rifle’s recoil is very different not only because of the power, but the fact that (to name the most obvious bit) one is wielded braced against the shoulder. One might be very adept at managing recoil like that, but a pistol - which is wielded in two hands - has a different sort of recoil which requires different methods of reducing it.
But they aren’t very different. It is merely a different stance. It seems like every one in this thread is exaggerating the difficulty of shooting a gun, this is usually endemic of people not actually having any experience with guns.
Guns became the weapon of choice because of their ease of use, just like crossbows when they came about.
Brace your stance, aim, and pull the trigger. There are only slight variations to this when it comes to each gun type. Hold it against your shoulder vs hold it in out in two hands is not a skill it is an action, an action the comes naturally to people. Only an idiot would try and hold a pistol to their shoulder to fire it and only an idiot would try and hold a rifle at arms length to fire it. So that isn’t what the skill is denoting.
The point is that the skill to use a gun is minimal by design, the skill over laps with multiple different types of guns that are not accurately denoted by the current categories and will never be until we split it into a dozen+ skills. And if it does get split into the different gun types then it still doesn’t accurately convey the overlap in skills with out some sort of synergy between them.
If marksmanship is supposed to be that over lap then we still have skills that don’t represent any actual skill usage.
Recoil management sounds again like over complicating things. You don’t manage recoil, you react to it, this is shown in the firing screen and again isn’t specific to each weapon type. Here is the NRA’s take on “managing recoil” https://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/2016/4/11/10-ways-to-manage-recoil/ , and none of it is skill based all of it is based on additions or changes to the gun and ammo.
[quote=“TheKobold, post:29, topic:14077”]But they aren’t very different. It is merely a different stance. It seems like every one in this thread is exaggerating the difficulty of shooting a gun, this is usually endemic of people not actually having any experience with guns.
Guns became the weapon of choice because of their ease of use, just like crossbows when they came about.
Brace your stance, aim, and pull the trigger. There are only slight variations to this when it comes to each gun type. Hold it against your shoulder vs hold it in out in two hands is not a skill it is an action, an action the comes naturally to people. Only an idiot would try and hold a pistol to their shoulder to fire it and only an idiot would try and hold a rifle at arms length to fire it. So that isn’t what the skill is denoting.
The point is that the skill to use a gun is minimal by design, the skill over laps with multiple different types of guns that are not accurately denoted by the current categories and will never be until we split it into a dozen+ skills. And if it does get split into the different gun types then it still doesn’t accurately convey the overlap in skills with out some sort of synergy between them.
If marksmanship is supposed to be that over lap then we still have skills that don’t represent any actual skill usage.
Recoil management sounds again like over complicating things. You don’t manage recoil, you react to it, this is shown in the firing screen and again isn’t specific to each weapon type. Here is the NRA’s take on “managing recoil” https://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/2016/4/11/10-ways-to-manage-recoil/ , and none of it is skill based all of it is based on additions or changes to the gun and ammo.[/quote]
You miss the point.
I mean that someone who’s used rifles for a while is going to develop a few tricks to using them - competition shooters, for instance, can reload and aim incredibly quickly and load four shotgun shells at a time because they’ve trained to do so for ages and prep accordingly. In this case (and I’d assume most other combat skills) I’d say the skill denotes familiarity and formed reflexes, from ‘average joe’ to ‘trained marksman’ to ‘legendary gunslinger who can stick a guy in the forehead from half a continent away with a Colt Single Action Army’.
TL;DR - It’s not ‘skill’ per se, but familiarity. Bear in mind that CDDA survivors pretty much eclipse regular human ability past level 10.
well, current accuracy system makes being simo hiya impossible. sniping at max just doesn’t work.
For what it’s worth, in the current system I find little to no reason to train anything but marksmanship and archery (for early-mid game) and rifles (for mid and late game).
Every other weapon-specific ranged skill just sits there, doing nothing.
So I would be perfectly ok with just 4 skills total or something (1-handed firearms / 2-handed firearms / archery / throwing). But then again, current system works, too.
Also, why crossbows are under archery is a complete mystery to me. Firing a crossbow in much more similar to a rifle than a bow.
I give up… My point is that all these skills people keep trying to attribute to a specific gun type are not specific to any gun type but are actually consistent across all gun types. And that some of these skills are not actually skills but actions that other mechanics account for. And that some don’t even have a skill attached to them but are just actions laymen can preform.
As for familiarity with the weapon… that breaks down when you consider the broad collection of weapons in the rifle category and the arguments that the use of each weapon type is distinct
I think after discussion and some research myself, going with Cool’s last suggestion of breaking it into actual skills based on accuracy and aim time and others is the best ideal.
Fixed in https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/pull/21545.[/quote]
but but… now my character, the bioprepper, starts with a crossbow, 2 in archery, and no skill in rifles… what will I ever dooo! Do you, or anyone reading, think they will eventually change it to 2 in rifles to match the weapon or maybe start him with a reflex recurve bow or some other type of bow(longbow/shortbow/etc.) instead?
Now that you’ve stated that. Certainly. sounds like it should be a simple fix just a value change or two rather.
Hmm. This ranged skill consolidation could work well in conjunction with the accuracy beats all fix thats on the drawing board.
Condensing it into Handgun, rifle, archery, launcher, and marksmanship. Any weapons found in-between could probably be adjusted to take from both categories at half value or something for calculations. (Skill A+B/2) XP/ 2 -> A & B etc…
Then levels with appropriate weapons could be counted towards effective min/max sight range and penalties/bonuses.
Soon will be changed in https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/pull/21556.
We need to just have a ‘shootaz’ stat and a ‘choppaz’ stat.
If it’s okay to say so, all the focus on changes and counter-changes to things like this seems kind of like obsessively drawing and redrawing and adding full detail to a single little face in a single little corner of a drawing when you have a giant, huge canvas still sitting blank. It builds up creative fatigue really fast, and you’ll almost certainly have to change it again anyway to fit with the rest of the substance you add in later, or else grit your teeth and leave it unsatisfying because you can’t bear the thought of reworking it just one more time again.
Obessively overworking one arbitrary aspect of your art comes with a very real risk of coming to resent it, in my experience. Your mileage may vary. I guess what I’m saying is, maybe it would be best to keep it simple for now, and come back to it when more of the broader game content is filled in to balance around?
[quote=“Rising Star, post:39, topic:14077”]If it’s okay to say so, all the focus on changes and counter-changes to things like this seems kind of like obsessively drawing and redrawing and adding full detail to a single little face in a single little corner of a drawing when you have a giant, huge canvas still sitting blank. It builds up creative fatigue really fast, and you’ll almost certainly have to change it again anyway to fit with the rest of the substance you add in later, or else grit your teeth and leave it unsatisfying because you can’t bear the thought of reworking it just one more time again.
Obessively overworking one arbitrary aspect of your art comes with a very real risk of coming to resent it, in my experience. Your mileage may vary. I guess what I’m saying is, maybe it would be best to keep it simple for now, and come back to it when more of the broader game content is filled in to balance around?[/quote]
I don’t think reducing the number of weapon skills would meaningfully affect the game either way. I would prefer fewer skills myself (one handed, two handed, throwing, archery, heavy/“other”), but that’s just that - a preference.