Guns, too many? Too few?

Game Talk The Drawing Board
61

I am ok with this.

[quote=“Binky, post:27, topic:4531”]It [abbr=ftfy]doesn’t add to the immersion for anyone, and[/abbr] just gets confusing/annoying for non-gun people to have to search through loads of different types of guns to find things that are just a tiny bit better than others.

I don’t think it needs to be (or is desirable to be) down to quite ‘pistol, smg, assault rifle’ but I really, really can’t see there being any point in main branch for more than three or four in each class and a few different types of ammo.

This would also help enormously with balance as 104 (or 5, I might have missed one or two) is way too much for even the pretence of balance.[/quote]

So I presume an ideal setup would be ‘light’ ‘heavy’ and ‘elite’ versions of each?

  1. Flavor/choice.
  2. Damn dirty casuals! To enjoy shooting things but not the guns. It’s like enjoying eating, but not the foods. >:(

IIRC it’s more like 20, with TONS of variations for each type, (which is the most confusing aspect I’d say). Plus only about half of those are really worth knowing, (.223, .45, 9mm, etc). In addition to those 20, throw in a handful of rockets, plus arrows & things like pebbles like you mentioned.
It really isn’t that many if you look at the ‘type’, and perhaps google them a bit to get a mental picture.

[quote=“Set, post:53, topic:4531”]Here goes my first post in here…

I believe firearms should be limited to a degree where the existing ones are different enough until the firearms code is significantly improved so single shots with different types of guns have different movement/action point costs because AFAIK semi-auto/single shot costs the same amount of time for any gun, plus the time it takes to point, aim and shoot should be considered in the cost for firing a single shot. Furthermore there is no way to do a .json for multiple fire modes (IE: single, 3-round burst, auto), no significant difference between pump-action and semi-auto shotguns, nor a mean of trying to control bursts(as in having the possibility of emptying a magazine in a single burst at a higher cost of time, such as 300 turns(the equivalent of moving through 3 tiles with a regular character). Also there are the matter of how firearms in CDDA have no reliability/maintenance mechanics for now(and that would possibly make the more rugged bow/xbow have another reason to exist besides being quieter). In short it is a long way to go.

Jagged Alliance 1.13 is a good example of how to accomodate combat mechanics for glorious gunporn: firing a desert eagle pistol in that game vs. firing a puny, low stopping power Russian PSM pistol is somewhat like(if not as extreme) as the difference between using a sledgehammer vs. using a switchblade in melee in Cataclysm:DDA. Plus each gun has different reliability. The AKs are effectively inferior in performance to the Diemaco C7A2 when it comes to accuracy and recoil(and speaking of that one, it may have a place inside a “Canadian Mod” for CDDA), but they also were more rugged and required less maintenance

Basically I think this game still hasn’t enough guns but it needs an overhaul of the firearms code before adding more ends having a point, but I don’t think cutting off the already existing variety is a good idea.

I believe in the very, very opposite. Silly and completely obvious shoutout guns from other videogames that are plain ridiculous(including the shishkebab) should be the domain of mods or optional, while a good selection different firearms that exist in real life or that could plausibly exist in the not so near future like the Rivtech guns should be in the main branch.[/quote]
This guy knows what’s up. But then I might be hurting his cause by agreeing with him in this same no-effort post.

62

More like enjoying eating but not caring about the fork and knife you’re using, really.

63

Shooting things isn’t complex enough to encompass the food as well.

guns go bang and kill things
64

I don’t understand you guys. If you want a simple game, go play Rogue Survivor. There are only very basic weapons, very basic food and combustibles.

DDA is supposed to be in depth and have flavor and variety.

There are food items that fulfill the same amount of hunger, should we remove those?

65

[quote=“Rivet, post:60, topic:4531”][quote=“Clayton, post:57, topic:4531”]I don’t understand the whole, “Just make it a mod!” mentality. How does having multiple choices of firearms effect your gameplay in a negative way when you can just…look…at…the…firearm…and…see…the…stats…and…ammo…

I really don’t understand.[/quote]

Because: A - whining about something is easier than actually doing stuff, and B - a lot of people have a very entitled ‘if I don’t like it then nobody should be allowed to enjoy it/use it’ mentality.

Having lots of content in the game is only negative if you’re too lazy to use your memory a bit, or if you’re just outright opposed to the inclusion of that content to begin with.

Simply put, if you think the game has too much content for you to wrap your poor little mind around, just ignore it. Don’t pick up those guns that offend you so greatly. Don’t hassle with the extensive crafting menu, or bother constructing things; it’s far too much effort to learn all that stuff. Don’t bother with clothes other than what you start with - and you should probably start as the default profession because the other ones have far too much character. Just spend the game killing stuff with your pocket knife and remain willfully ignorant of all the work that’s gone into expanding the game and its content.

Or go play Wolfenstein 3D! The second episode even has zombies, and with one knife, three guns, and a single ammunition type you’ll likely never be confused by having to remember that your 9mm pistol eats 9mm bullets.

Remember folks, C:DDA is set twenty minutes (or years) into the future. Sure most things superficially resemble the current level of technology, but we’re talking about a world where the six million dollar man is reality and people cruise around in plutonium powered cars as well. If we start pulling the laser guns, miniaturized nuclear devices, bionic upgrades, caseless weapons, and man-portable plutonium-fueled power supplies from the game we’ll be left with, what, a roguelike version of Left 4 Dead? I know that’s where we started initially, but we’ve grown a lot since then and it would be a terrible shame to destroy all of that progress because a minority of players can’t be asked to remember that their Ruger 10/22 holds ten rounds of 22LR.

I’m almost convinced we should make a version of the game for the ‘I can’t be bothered to actually think’ crowd that has one type of clothing, one type of tool, one type of food, one type of drink, one type of building, one profession, one type of monster, and no guns or cars or optional fun items.

Remember kids, all guns are ‘overpowered’ - until you run out of bullets. Or, as I once saw on a truly awesome bumper sticker, ‘God made man. Samuel Colt made them equal.’[/quote]SOMEBODY MAKE IT SO I CAN THUMB THIS UP GOD DAMN IT!

absolutely true! when i first started playing i shoved all the CBMs, Mutagens, goo canister, electronics, crafting materials and other weird stuff into a corner and forgot about them, or simply ignored them. but now that i am more familiar with the game i’ve started using them more little by little, until now most of my characters end up being cyborg supermutants accompanied by a herd of blobs and wearing almost all gear i crafted myself. yet click on my username above my avatar, then click “show posts” under my avatar and you will notice i never once demanded that any of these features be removed.

so what if you’re not a “gun guy”? CDDA is a great opportunity for you to learn something about guns, and who knows, maybe even inspire you to go out, buy one, and enjoy shooting. i don’t care how many FPS games you’ve played, if you’ve never shot a real gun in real life you have no fucking clue what you’re missing! just make sure if you decide to get into guns to have someone who is experienced with firearms show you how to handle them safely and accompany you the first time you shoot one.

66

As the game is slightly far enough into a future, or perhaps a even parallel of our own world, I’d suggest weapons be trimmed back due to the wartime nature of the setting. During World War II the United States focused on three primary calibers (30-06, .45, .50) for both maximize production and simplified supply chain, as it stands I can loot the remains of a dead military squad and find 4 guns and 5 ammo types, none of which match (excepting the ever-reliable grenade launcher.)

I’d even go so far as to suggest suggest that most, if not all firearms, be entirely fictional if clearly inspired (because why not, we can have some fun liberating the designs a bit too, imagine the amusing in-universe advertisement potential.)

Small Pistol Caliber (For plinking, small game carbines, holdouts, likely also popular in a citizen’s defense force/criminal SMG)

Large Pistol Caliber/Intermediate Caliber (Probably a traditonal revolver of some sort, a carbine of sorts, maybe some overcompensating Semi-Auto)

Shotgun Caliber (mostly for hunting or police work it would be incredibly diverse in round type, but ‘mostly’ restricted to Semi_Auto at best)

Hunting Rifle Caliber/Antiquated Military Rifle Round (your .30-06/7.62×54mmR stand in.)

Standardized Caseless Military Round (fancy, Modern, possible specialty rounds coming in Airburst, Gyrocket, and even Seeker?)

Competing Railgun (Maximum… Penetration… just be careful because the whole thing’s a little cumbersome and the battery drains pretty fast.)

Electrolaser/Microwave Gun (Little in the way of penetration, but they can disable a person (with burning pain or electric shock), or possible stop an unshielded car, or rampaging robot…) probably used by the police.

Experimental Beam/Laser (For Science Powered Suppression, just watch out, the battery on this one tends to catch fire spontaneously, smoke providing cover prevented it from being a serious competitor.)

Flamethrower/Plasma (Make it all burn, Make it burn hotter.)

Grenade Launcher (for the placing kaboom way over there.)

Rocket Launcher (is for killing of tank, or helicopter.)

To finish out my guideline list, I’ll point out that it doesn’t contain crafted-survivor/scrap shooters, ‘artifacts from beyond the veil’, any of the various primitive/muscle powered projectiles, or BIIIIG mounted-only heavy artillery. Combine that with the many ammo variants and I believe this list could guideline something suitably massive and comprehensive WITHOUT attempting to contain every caliber laid to lathe since the 1880s.

67

Boy did this devolve into scream-fest chest pounding fast. Man.

My thoughts -

I personally like a more “realistic”-seeming world where all kinds of terrible crap went wrong and we’re facing the end-of-days but we aren’t living in a cartoon or video game world. So, weird, video-game-crazy Dead Rising-style stuff is just silly to me and I dislike it. Currently, that means I ignore (as was screamed in a prior post) a chunk of content because I don’t want to play with it. I’d choose “Crazy Weapons: Off” if it was an option at world-gen. Futuristic stuff is cool, exotic stuff can be neat (tho I’d argue how “exotic” is New England really, even some years in the future?) but just downright “wtf” stuff? No thanks. But that is a different discussion I guess.

As for guns … I agree with the “there are so many and yet so few” argument. There is a crap-ton of different kinds of firearms, and ammo variants, yet they all pretty much do the job exactly the same. Pull trigger, zombie dies. Do the different stats actually do anything? Is having 21 points in blah-blah better than 18 points in it currently? Is there a noticeable difference to the statistics? Should there be then? If there isn’t, why bother having tiny variations in stuff?

Everyone saying “just make a pile of guns and a pile of ammo, pick one up then the other highlights”: this is fine if you’ve found shopping carts of the crap and toted it back to base. If you rush a gun store with zombies on your heels thinking you’ll fight your way back out, how long is someone supposed to look through option screens and item details before they are able to grab items to fight back the horde? Every step counts … they’re gaining on you …

Run run run … kick in the door … OMG guns, thank god … uhm … well … this is a H&K something … err … ok, so … inspect this one … Remmington … that takes … wait … no … thats not the right ammo … hmm … Time Out zombies, I need to fumble with menus. If I walk over and pick them up one by one, and walk to the ammo to see if it fits I’m zombie-chow. Now what?

… or worse … if too many options are spawnable, it is very much the reality that all the guns and all the ammo that spawned will STILL not give you a combo that fit together in that store.
I find a gun or two, and then just carry it the entire game for emergencies; usually I’ll keep a couple for different targets (a shotgun, a SMG). I don’t see enough difference in the stats to warrant bothering to look at them too closely. I load every other gun I find into a shopping cart and horde them “just because”, but I play melee usually anyway so I don’t get too into the gun thing.

… adding the caliber to the right of the item name when looked at quickly, would go a long way:
If I hit (v) to check loot in the gun store, have it say:
Glock 19 (9mm)

Let the item inspection screen say:
Glock 19 (9mm)
Stats: ## Stats: ##
Stats: ## Stats: ##
Stats: ## Stats: ##

… making it so ammo spawned checks the gun and theres a very good chance it’ll match (so a gun store has 3 guns and 4 ammo spawned, make it give a really solid chance the ammo will match the guns).

68

I would actually be really, really happy with a system where guns are abstracted to “light”, “medium”, and “elite” types with appropriate ammo type, and where ammo is also abstracted to “light”, “medium”, “heavy”, and “elite” if applicable.

69

[quote=“Dominae, post:67, topic:4531”]Boy did this devolve into scream-fest chest pounding fast. Man.

My thoughts -

I personally like a more “realistic”-seeming world where all kinds of terrible crap went wrong and we’re facing the end-of-days but we aren’t living in a cartoon or video game world. So, weird, video-game-crazy Dead Rising-style stuff is just silly to me and I dislike it. Currently, that means I ignore (as was screamed in a prior post) a chunk of content because I don’t want to play with it. I’d choose “Crazy Weapons: Off” if it was an option at world-gen. Futuristic stuff is cool, exotic stuff can be neat (tho I’d argue how “exotic” is New England really, even some years in the future?) but just downright “wtf” stuff? No thanks. But that is a different discussion I guess.

As for guns … I agree with the “there are so many and yet so few” argument. There is a crap-ton of different kinds of firearms, and ammo variants, yet they all pretty much do the job exactly the same. Pull trigger, zombie dies. Do the different stats actually do anything? Is having 21 points in blah-blah better than 18 points in it currently? Is there a noticeable difference to the statistics? Should there be then? If there isn’t, why bother having tiny variations in stuff?

Everyone saying “just make a pile of guns and a pile of ammo, pick one up then the other highlights”: this is fine if you’ve found shopping carts of the crap and toted it back to base. If you rush a gun store with zombies on your heels thinking you’ll fight your way back out, how long is someone supposed to look through option screens and item details before they are able to grab items to fight back the horde? Every step counts … they’re gaining on you …

Run run run … kick in the door … OMG guns, thank god … uhm … well … this is a H&K something … err … ok, so … inspect this one … Remmington … that takes … wait … no … thats not the right ammo … hmm … Time Out zombies, I need to fumble with menus. If I walk over and pick them up one by one, and walk to the ammo to see if it fits I’m zombie-chow. Now what?

… or worse … if too many options are spawnable, it is very much the reality that all the guns and all the ammo that spawned will STILL not give you a combo that fit together in that store.
I find a gun or two, and then just carry it the entire game for emergencies; usually I’ll keep a couple for different targets (a shotgun, a SMG). I don’t see enough difference in the stats to warrant bothering to look at them too closely. I load every other gun I find into a shopping cart and horde them “just because”, but I play melee usually anyway so I don’t get too into the gun thing.

… adding the caliber to the right of the item name when looked at quickly, would go a long way:
If I hit (v) to check loot in the gun store, have it say:
Glock 19 (9mm)

Let the item inspection screen say:
Glock 19 (9mm)
Stats: ## Stats: ##
Stats: ## Stats: ##
Stats: ## Stats: ##

… making it so ammo spawned checks the gun and theres a very good chance it’ll match (so a gun store has 3 guns and 4 ammo spawned, make it give a really solid chance the ammo will match the guns).[/quote]i do agree that if a gun store carries a gun, they should also carry the ammo for it. maybe not all the time, and maybe not for every gun they have because sometimes certain ammo is in more demand than others(as evidenced by the .22 and .223 shortage over the past couple of years), but there should at least be a 75% chance that if there’s a gun in the store there should be ammo for it too.

70

To solve SOME issues of firearm diversity perhaps a Handling stat could be implemented? It would cover how much ‘recoil’ you suffer from moving, while also determining just how capable you are of performing headshots at closer ranges(Who knows, maybe it could cover recoil recovery too?). For example, an M9 would be pretty easy to handle making it appropriate for running and gunning, a Desert Eagle would be heavier and far larger, lending itself to lining up for one really good shot. Something like an AK or a Remington 700 would likewise be unwieldy in close quarters, making it more difficult to score headshots at closer range.

Various weapon mods could be added or changed to improve handling, installing a foregrip could give a small bonus to rifles and SMGs, whereas a removed stock would make handling a lot easier, but recoil from shooting would be a lot higher.

71

I think more could be done to make the redundant guns mechanically distinct as well. That’s a problem that can be solved by adding content, not pruning it.

Also, quoting my suggestion from earlier.

[quote=“Inadequate, post:49, topic:4531”]If you really wanted to clean up the clutter without removing content, a compromise would be to limit gun stores and maybe military bases/soldier corpses/zombie soldier drops to a certain set of guns, and have some of the more redundant ones tucked away in basements/LMOE shelters/pawn shops. So the more common areas which people will try to obtain guns from will be limited to a few common guns/ammo types, making dealing with the clutter more manageable, and the rarer gun content will still be there for people who search for it, in areas where you’d expect them to be found. I think a big part of the issue is when people get frustrated because they walk into a gun shop, see a colossal list of guns/ammo, pick up everything and realise that not one of them is compatible with the other.

Personally I’d like a modular gunsmithing mechanic added, but I think the sheer amount of guns make it impractical.[/quote]

72

How about melee weapons? Or the worst offender in variety-to-complexity ratio, food?

Having ridiculous variety of items of all kinds is one of major characteristic that sets this game apart from other roguelikes. There is no reason to make it more generic.

What percentage of gamers who are into post apocalyptic roguelikes have absolutely no idea about guns?

73

Plenty of people who own guns know stuff all about them.

74

Oh god, what is this I see before me? People actually demanding generic guns?

NO. GET OUT.

That is a horrible idea. This game doesn’t need simplifying. What it needs is to be more intuitive.

Put in more information that helps the player. Would that be possible? Make sure that all weapon descriptions actually reflect what the weapon can do. Make it clear if a weapon is silent or not silent. Better descriptions on the crafting menu etc.

And for the love of god make the Gantz Rustung NOT CRAP. Why would a weapon that takes that much stuff to create be utterly useless?

75

[quote=“GrizzlyAdamz, post:61, topic:4531”]1. Flavor/choice.
2. Damn dirty casuals! To enjoy shooting things but not the guns. It’s like enjoying eating, but not the foods. >:([/quote]
^5 lol. I love guns so much I even added more guns to JA2 1.13 for MOAR FLAVORZ.
Also EHRMAGHERD LETS REMOVE ALL VARIATIONS OF POTATO CHIPS BECAUSE THEY ARE THE SAME THING AFKLHAFLHAGOVL

76

Honestly, I doubt this conversation will ever accomplish anything practical, too many people seem ideologically opposed to each other to actually consider their opponents’ ideas and no-one seems to suggest any practical solutions on differentiating them mechanically. Everyone seems to be content to dogpile on the same points over and over, and nothing gets accomplished.

The strangest thing is probably the people who get confused that other people aren’t completely and utterly into guns. Sometimes people have different interests, dudes.

77

Well I dont think we have much guns in order to actually justify removing some of them. And most of the weapons we have already are pretty common IRL or should be known to the average gamer. Now IMO some weapons are out of place (what are soviet block weapons weapons doing in the dark dystopic america of the dark close future?) and we do have some rather obscure historical weapons (Mossberg Brownie anyone?) as well as some guns that never made it out of prototype stage (the H&K UCP for examle) as well as weapon without niches (do we really need two varieties of derringer pistols? I think that in that case it’d be justified to have a single generic derringer pistol), also perhaps for commodity we could standardize the ammo to have the average player not playing mix and match with the ammo types and pistols, I dont mean reducing them to “pistol ammo” or “heavy pistol ammo” but instead get rid of some of the more exotic rounds (for example the 5.7*28mm that only the five-seven uses in game) and make them into more common rounds .45, .22, .44, etc, etc.

Ill say not to remove the ones that are already in game, but if we are going to add historical or prototype weapons in the future, they better be ones more well known to the general public (winchester 1895 rifles, luger pistols, as historical ones and H&K G11 and the XM8 as never realized prototypes).

78

Well, there’re only so many points that are on-topic and don’t need a macro discussion of how the game handles guns. We’ve kind of been half off topic this whole time, and going even further afield is kind of needed.

None Yet

Still None

Everything

OI, I LIKE MY 5.7 CANDLEBURY, YOU KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF IT. (Also used in the p90, plus it’s a distinctive ammo in having high penetration/middling damage)
Otherwise what you’re saying is reasonable.

79

We’ve been remiss! How on earth can we have a PPSh but completely overlook the classic Thompson .45? I can’t make a gangster character without a tommy gun you know!

80

+1 to this.