To anyone who can hear this: The silenced pistols are a waste of time.

[ThePissedPsychologist]

The Idea itself works okay. The pistol is in fact silenced, it's requirement of subsonic ammo is a realistic balancing choice, and you trade down sights aiming for the ability to fire to your hearts content. The problem really just comes down to cost/return for when you actually get it.

The requirement for requisition packs means you may be able to MAKE this gun as early as level 12, but you will not receive the gun until you reach Old Town. By then you will be dealing with very durable zombies, ontop of whatever survivor level you're at that you felt comfortable reaching Old Town with. On nightmare mode: by Old Town you'll be dealing with small brick walls that are shambling around, pretending to be made of flesh. This means base level whatever your killing zombies with better be doing a ♥♥♥♥ load of damage, else be worth it's durability/bullet cost.

This just won't be the case with any silenced pistol. The silenced pistol maintains it's stats from whatever pistol you crafted it from. This excludes rais' pistol, which is not capable of being silenced, but does include golden weapons, rare as they may be. This means any pistol doing more than 260 damage is an extremely rare get, and will suffer at any attempts to use it at a distance once a silencer is attached. So by old town, especially on nightmare mode, you may empty 7-10 rounds into a standard zombie to kill it, and you will need to do so at point blank.

Now every time you want more ammo for this gun you must run around to find these events and you'll get enough requisition packs for thirty bullets. Which means... maybe four zombies. It will kill bandits in 2-3 shots, but at that point they'll likely be firing back and it matters little if you have a silencer or not.

Contrast this with the bow, which you will have access at survivor rank 9, will be sold at every shop since then even in the slums, will do 260 damage out the gate, can receive mods, can produce ammo for metal bits and nails. Or can be bought at the shop. And while limited into short range... so is the silenced pistol. If you have the following DLC the crossbow will surpass both of these in stats alone, and is out right given to you.

By the time you receive the silenced pistol, it will be outdated. It is neat, and if you could still get it even in the slums around level 12 it would be useful. As it is however, it is simply a waste of your time.

[DedZedNub]

I'd guess this is true enough. But level is easy to manage or skill up before you ever get to Old Town. In my Normal Game, I have maxed all skill levels and Survivor Level well before I ever went to Old Town.

The other thing is that you will be offered the Bow by a certain Survivor Level in the game (it may require a certain story quest level also). That is good enough for relatively stealthy play, although anything you attack with it knows where you are, which I gather is not the case with the Silenced Pistol. Bow ammo is provided by the Quartermasters every 12 hours, after you progress enough, there is a blueprint to make more regular ammo, there are varieties of special arrow such as explosive ones, and you actually don't need to aim down the sight if you want to shoot far and accurately. In fact, what I most hated about the regular Bow was when I aimed down the sight I would have issues keeping situational awareness and turn rate was way off. But I learned I can fire more accurately and at longer effective range without aiming, which gets rid of that problem.

This also is why, to me, the Silenced Pistol had to be balanced the way it was, with difficult access to ammo, and relatively mild damage. You already have all the tools you really need that are more versatile anyway. Silenced Pistol is better in certain situations, for certain, but I think some players simply wanted God Mode, and didn't realize that would break the game. It is like those who want a Stealth Mode sort of play in the game. Well, it is kind of in there, but it is more situational awareness (and the vertical game), so you use a style of play that is different to achieve it. But again, people just want to hit crouch, get behind the zombie, and hit the I-WIN button, which is cheap for this sort of game. Zombies are like a localized hive mind, Stealth is not going to trump Parkour and all the special attacks nor Camouflage -- otherwise those mechanics become busted and a total waste of time other than for coolness purposes.

[Mips0n]

While many of the things you said are true, I don't really mind a silenced gun in a zombie apocalypse game being hard to get and nonpractical for superlate game. What do you expect? To reach some point in game where it offers you the ability to go full rambo with an endless supply of special ammo for a silent gun? This would erase any level of difficulty, a complete gamebreaker. Just take it as it is. As a cool gimmic to professionally clear an area every once in a while.

[ThePissedPsychologist]

Originally posted by DedZedNub:

...This also is why, to me, the Silenced Pistol had to be balanced the way it was, with difficult access to ammo, and relatively mild damage. You already have all the tools you really need that are more versatile anyway. Silenced Pistol is better in certain situations, for certain, but I think some players simply wanted God Mode, and didn't realize that would break the game. It is like those who want a Stealth Mode sort of play in the game. Well, it is kind of in there, but it is more situational awareness (and the vertical game), so you use a style of play that is different to achieve it. But again, people just want to hit crouch, get behind the zombie, and hit the I-WIN button, which is cheap for this sort of game. Zombies are like a localized hive mind, Stealth is not going to trump Parkour and all the special attacks nor Camouflage -- otherwise those mechanics become busted and a total waste of time other than for coolness purposes.

I will admit I've never played this game on normal. My first runthrough was on hard which felt like a good enough challenge and for this replay I've been running on nightmare mode (both with new characters), so I wouldn't be surprised if it holds up there. But on the two difficulties I played it was pointless when you got it. I meant this topic mostly to be a warning to not get your hopes up like I did and rush to get a weapon that would be inherently useless and expensive by the time you get it.

Originally posted by Mippy:

While many of the things you said are true, I don't really mind a silenced gun in a zombie apocalypse game being hard to get and nonpractical for superlate game. What do you expect? To reach some point in game where it offers you the ability to go full rambo with an endless supply of special ammo for a silent gun? This would erase any level of difficulty, a complete gamebreaker. Just take it as it is. As a cool gimmic to professionally clear an area every once in a while.

Well my primary complaint isn't just that it's hard to get, it's that there are blatantly better options by the time you get it, for less resources. I wouldn't mind if they had even made it a single shot pistol with a max ammo of ten if it meant I could at least kill a single zombie with it reliably on hard. On nightmare it will not let you clear ANY area period, let alone professionally.

[HiTmAn]

its nore addon...for me one handed wepons and bow is my prefered choice... and alwayes have semi auto shotgun for moments if things go wrong... i use it little bit but its not practical like we all agree...

[Pocket Dog]

Originally posted by Mippy:

While many of the things you said are true, I don't really mind a silenced gun in a zombie apocalypse game being hard to get and nonpractical for superlate game. What do you expect? To reach some point in game where it offers you the ability to go full rambo with an endless supply of special ammo for a silent gun? This would erase any level of difficulty, a complete gamebreaker. Just take it as it is. As a cool gimmic to professionally clear an area every once in a while.

The golden bow that can be created at the very beginning of the game is quite game breaking itself, at least at the lower to mid levels. When things get heated, it's not an assault rifle or shotgun I switch over to, it's the bow. It's quiet, has distance, and inflicts almost 500 damage per shot. Even the normal bow is pretty powerful, though it only does around half damage of the golden bow. I don't think anyone was arguing that they wanted to go into full Rambo mode with the silenced pistol; it's that the pistol could have been designed a little better when there are already better, more efficient (and overpowered) weapons in the game to begin with.