Let's talk guns, are they worth the bother ?

[WarMage]

Hey guys,

Now that I understand the game better I've finally started doing tests with the guns ! Was lucky enough to amass a fairly good amount from Rosewood. Now, important details :

- Solo, not talking about multiplayer where things are very different.

So, are the guns useful / worth it at killing zombies ?

My personal experience so far is no. My setup was a police officer, so I tried with firearms lvl 3-4 and reload 2-3 (it got better as I went on with my carnage) with both the 7 rounds shotgun (Remington 870) and the 9mm pistol (Beretta M9) (as basic weapons, they seemed like good choices). Oh, also, I'm using the fireams b41 mod to add a couple more guns / ammo while still keeping things realistic and limited.

Shotgun - Was fun to use. Yes, it helps a lot leveling up your skills. Although, shooting into a pretty big horde did very little damage. I was quite surprised at how nerfed the shotgun was. I thought with all the downside of huge incredibly loud sound and super heavy weapon to carry around you would hit a bit harder than that. Best shots killed 3 Zs and most of the time, it would kill 1 or 2 and wound another. For everyshot that killed 1-3 Zs, 5 more came running. So it spriral out of control quick. You can't seems to be able to keep up at all.

Pistol (9mm) - I had 6 clip, so it was a blast to use despite how clunky it is to manage your clip & reload & clear jamming while fighting. You can shoot at about 5 meter. Past that, you're incompetent to hit anything. I was really surprised to see the pistol not having much more range than the shotgun. That king of nerf was unexpected. Less noise, easier to control your crowd and all but with such a bad range I wouldn't call that functional. The 9mm round stopping power was also felt. Maybe a .45 pistol would've done better but then most of them have 7 rounds clip.

Fighting style - Well, you gotta kite'em around. Mix in short jog to get a bit ahead then turn around, fire a few shots, then rince and repeat. That's the only way to stay ahead. That combined with the incredibly short range of all weapons, the long aiming time (red turning to green otherwise you're completely wasting your shot) & the necessity of staying stationary (you can't walk backward to help delay the Zs longer as you would with melee) it was pretty bad. I'll also mention the disgustingly long pump action of the shotgun and the pistol constantly jammed even if it was a 100% durability. Strangely enough, I never had a jam on the shotgun. Also, the pistol lost durability pretty quick after just a few mags.

Conclusion ?
It really feels like weapons aren't useful for killing at all. Everything I've done with weapons, I could've done better with melee rank 2. Firearms require more skills, are heavier, need to expand ammo, they also have durability, they're got plenty of extra rules (You need to stand still, you need to aim properly, etc), they've got important downsides like the very loud noise and they seems to have none of the benefits you would expect like actually having range or being good at clearing Zs or even you know, having firerate ? The shotgun was super slow but the pistol was pretty slow too.

I know some people use the weapons as noise maker to displace Zs temporarily. That's one use but I feel you would like to use a shotgun for that as other weapons might not be noisy enough to draw the entire horde you're looking to displace yet it's so heavy it doesn't feel like a great choice either.

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I'll remind ya'll, this is a discussion.
These are my first impressions after doing an evening of tests with my current arsenal.
I had none of the rarer weapons on hand like an M16 or M14.

I'm totally aware that multiplayer change the dynamic too. With two people, there's two targets for the Zs. There's also twice the firerate. There's a lot of advantages playing multiplayer but that doesn't change anything to the weapon base stats, abilities and limitations.

I'd like to hear your opinion on weapons. Are they worth collecting & carrying around ? Are they worth the hassle to maintain ?

Can they be effective at killing Zs in different circumstances ?
Do they have other alternate uses ?

Let me know what you think.

PS :
If your argument is "Gun are fun ! I like pew pew." then it's perfectly fine. I'm not talking about that. I'm looking at their efficiency versus their downsides.

PPS :
I'm aware of the argument "They're functioning as intended by the devs, there's nothing to change here.". My answer is simple : Okay. If that's what the devs wants... then so be it. It still doesn't prevent us to use our reason and logic to discuss the matter and see what would be best even if, in the end, it changes nothing to the game itself.

As a side note, I'll add - Most zombies games that have implemented useless firearms do so because they're lazy and can't be bothered to balance them properly. Project Zomboid's case is interesting because they've done the effort of balancing their weapons with pretty heavy downsides.... yet none of the upsides ? So you get the useless firearms of other zombies games with added extra realistic downsides. It's.... weird ? Sadistic ? Definitively sadistic.

[Tam belén]

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[TheBasque]

Mmm, with a new character and a few boxes of ammo it's possible to level up your aiming to level 5 pretty quickly and easily (2 days). I've found guns to be pretty OP.

[TheBasque]

Shotgun shell boxes, that is

[sentry]

Guns are definitely worth it if you don't have multi hit enabled, especially shotguns as the damage output:ammo usage ratio is pretty balanced

[WarMage]

Are you guys playing on online servers ? Because I'm talking solo here. Are you guys using the game vanilla settings ? I'm running the Survivor option.

Gun make it safer-ish to shoot Zs early on (let's say first week) but it also aggro a bunch of them. So is it really safer ? Not so in my opinion. You can manage just fine with a hammer and, if you play right, you won't get bitten either. The bonus is you'll level up your melee weapon skilll and maintenance which will have you deal more damage and make your melee weapon last longer. It's quite beneficial compared to firearms.

[TheBasque]

Originally posted by WarMage:

Are you guys playing on online servers ? Because I'm talking solo here. Are you guys using the game vanilla settings ? I'm running the Survivor option.

Gun make it safer-ish to shoot Zs early on (let's say first week) but it also aggro a bunch of them. So is it really safer ? Not so in my opinion. You can manage just fine with a hammer and, if you play right, you won't get bitten either. The bonus is you'll level up your melee weapon skilll and maintenance which will have you deal more damage and make your melee weapon last longer. It's quite beneficial compared to firearms.

Both, as long as you have plenty of space and ammo, maybe even a back up shotty in case it breaks, it's very possible and easy to kill hordes. You're faster than zombies with your normal walking speed, so just make sure they're Infront of you at all times.


I can kill hordes with melee weapons but it's more dangerous due to having to get close to them and you suffer from exhaustion when fighting in melee.

[TheSuit]

Yes - but it takes time for them to be useful.
When you hit level 10 - a pistol basically is an aimbot killing machine.

[TheBasque]

Originally posted by TheSuit:

Yes - but it takes time for them to be useful.
When you hit level 10 - a pistol basically is an aimbot killing machine.

Shot guns are usuable at low levels and as I said , very easy to level up to level 5 aiming after a day or two of killing zeds. At that point, you're way more accurate with pistols.

[MagikarpMagi]

I think guns are worth the investment later, but I don't use then early. I source them and mark then, and when I find a place to settle down I'll typically go pick them up.

My current character in Riverside has located 2 M16s and a Katana in the first week. I haven't gathered them, but I have them marked. The houses you can find with boarded up windows are goldmines. Well... except that what I'm really looking for is a sledge... of course.

But once I get settled I'm going to hoard my guns and start blastin'. Until then, crowbar all the way.

[Animalman]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2831555874
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2831555906
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2831555800
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2831556149
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2831556212

I did this without guns. Just a pickaxe i kept repairing.

[DaTank]

I can't take someone seriously when they ask if guns are worth the bother in a zombie apocalypse

[cr4zyl3x]

It's just the way you're playing your game.

[Animalman]

you better be good with both, and without guns. otherwise you've only got half of a combat advantage.

[WarMage]

I appreciate those who made an effort giving a worthwhile reply but I do feel that a majority isn't taking the subject seriously.

Again, this is from the perspective of a new player who arrived 3 weeks ago. I've learned much since then.... and it's also why I went to great detail to explain exactly what was my experience.

Also, I considered that my firearms skills might not be high enough but that's totally the point too. Rank 3-4 ain't bad per se. It's almost half of the way. From one good reply, I gather that rank 5 is where you start to see a real difference and rank 10 is great. So again, this feels like yet another skill that the leveling isn't linear. That there's an unmarked point at which all of a sudden you get a huge boost just like sneak from 0 to level 1 you go from 120% noise to 90% which is HUGE. Bigger than any other level.

A new player experience is tainted by those things. Especially if they're not explained or if pretty hard to figure out on your own.

So again, guns feels really WEAK even at rank 4. The performance I got out of those was quite underwhelming. I expected better.

Now, if I'm to trust you guys, what you're saying, basically, is that guns start to work at firearm 5 and get really good at 10. That to level up firearm, one should grab a shotgun and waste ammo until level 5. That would also imply that before level 5, most gun are useless. Which is exactly what I've been saying. Just saying :)

[TheBasque]

Originally posted by WarMage:

I appreciate those who made an effort giving a worthwhile reply but I do feel that a majority isn't taking the subject seriously.

Again, this is from the perspective of a new player who arrived 3 weeks ago. I've learned much since then.... and it's also why I went to great detail to explain exactly what was my experience.

Also, I considered that my firearms skills might not be high enough but that's totally the point too. Rank 3-4 ain't bad per se. It's almost half of the way. From one good reply, I gather that rank 5 is where you start to see a real difference and rank 10 is great. So again, this feels like yet another skill that the leveling isn't linear. That there's an unmarked point at which all of a sudden you get a huge boost just like sneak from 0 to level 1 you go from 120% noise to 90% which is HUGE. Bigger than any other level.

A new player experience is tainted by those things. Especially if they're not explained or if pretty hard to figure out on your own.

So again, guns feels really WEAK even at rank 4. The performance I got out of those was quite underwhelming. I expected better.

Now, if I'm to trust you guys, what you're saying, basically, is that guns start to work at firearm 5 and get really good at 10. That to level up firearm, one should grab a shotgun and waste ammo until level 5. That would also imply that before level 5, most gun are useless. Which is exactly what I've been saying. Just saying :)

It depends on the weapon, hand guns don't work well if you have low aiming skill, but shotguns are still usable. And since they hit me more than one target, they level you up pretty dang fast. it's possible to get to level 5 aiming in a day or two of killing zombies, if you have enough shot gun shell boxes. I also recommend having the highlighting option on, it becomes a lot easier when to shoot. Aim and wait until the zombies are hilghted green. In melee, highlighting is not really useful, but it's almost a must have option if you plan on using guns.

That's probably why youre not doing so hot at low skill level. Shot guns are great and always useful, even at low aiming. Pistols become useful at around level 4 or 5, but you can still use them below that but probably not to take on hordes.