Please fix the guns next

[✚ Mariel ✚]

There's a few things about guns that bother me, and I have a few solutions to offer:

Pistol: the accuracy rate is a cone. This means you are more accurate at close range and less accurate at long range. However, this system feels a bit weird for me. Accuracy at a range seems fine for a guy with no previous experience with habdling a gun, but accuracy at close range feels terrible. Even I could hit a chomper that's lunging at me from 1-2m away and I've never fired a gun before. Of course, at that range it fills about 90% of the cone but that still means you have a 10% chance that you miss completely and it hits you. Also at very close range it always seems to miss to me. I've had 3 deaths (non-permadeath) because a chomper was pressed right up against me and I kept missing. I suspect this is because the cone is only pointed at a part of the chomper because it is so close and the side of the chomper are coming out of the cone, like the cone is pointed straight down the middle of it and unless the entire chomper is in the cone then it automatically whiffs

My solution to this is to make it so the cone is the same at a distance but at around 5 metres it narrows rapidly and at 2 metres it's just a line. To stop chompers from being easily stun locked at 2 metres make it so they don't stun from gunfire and rush through it so you are encouraged to fire at a distance anyway. Also fix it so that it doesn't always miss in melee range

Shotgun: I've always had a soft spot for this weapon since playing RE2 as a child where I was too scared to progress far and the shotgun was the best weapon I acquired, saving me from that terrifying tongue thing!

In this game however it feels like a terrible weapon. It has a wider cone than a handgun and a slower firing rate for higher damage, but otherwise it uses the same mechancis as the handgun. By this I mean it has an either it hits for full damage or misses completely script, and so a chomper can be 2 metres from me and I have a 50:50 chance to even hit it even when I am pointing directly at it, and can fire less shots before it closes in. it also seems to have a script where it does less damage as the range increases. The extra damage at close range if I happen to hit just doesn't justify this. It's so weird to fire directly at a lunging chomper from 2 metres and all the buckshot bends around it like that woman in Metal Gear Solid.

The solution to this is to make it so the shotgun always hits if the target is in the cone. And it's damage varies based on range. To stop it from being OP for stunlocking you could make it so it either only stuns if the enemy is within 2 metre requiring skil lin timing the shot as if it is fired too early the enemy will rush through and hit the player or if it's too late they get hit. Or make it so the stun is brief so a fast enemy like a chomper can lunge before another shot is fired. This would encourage the player to soften them up with a ranged weapon like a handgun then finish with a shotgun shell, or soften them up with a shell, take a hit while switching to an axe, then finish with a special attack, or be clever by hiding behind a door and blasting the chomper the instant it breaks through the door like on Kill Bill

I have a couple of other suggestions as well.

Ammo: There's too much of it and it's easy to buy from wolfman. I finished with about 30 clips of handgun ammo and 50+ shotgun shells. I found 3 handguns, 2 single shotguns, 2 8-gauge shotguns and a sawed off shotgun, most of which I sold for handgun ammo and axe repair kits and later lots of bottles. Please make it so that ammo cannot be purchased, appears in limited quantities at fixed locations so the player can count on at least a little ammo, and make a handgun clip or a couple of shotguns about as rare a drop as an axe. With the fixes I suggested guns will be powerful but extremely limited weapons requiring the player to rely more on traps or avoidance

Gun types: I feel like given the slightly old fashioned nature of the game guns should be a bit less modern. I would like to see the handgun replaced with an old fashioned revolver pistol like in Forbidden Siren and that police used to carry that is reloaded slowly like the 8-gauge currently is. I would like to see the 8-gauge replaced with that sort of farmer shotgun that can only take 2 shells which will also be fine as with the changes a shotgun could kill even a black chomper in 2 shots if the player waits til it is very close. I haven't found the rifle yet it wasnt at the train for me so I can't comment, I just hope it as as I imagine a moderately damaging highly accurate 1-shot rifle to soften up a chomper then quickly swap to a handgun to finish it then reload the rifle. I didn't kill wolfman but I don't feel either an SMG or an AK should be in the game, they seem too advanced for what seems to be around WW1 time

Also I know this isn't about guns but I wanted to throw it in anyway. I feel like enemies aren't dangerous enough. A chomper takes a few hits to bring me down, or about 4 with the health upgrade, and enemies can be easily defeated with the special melee attack and an axe. If I have full health and an axe I'm guaranteed to win in a melee with a chomper if I just advance on it while mashing the special attack. I felt such dread when I first saw it smash through a window in the prologue and was a little disappointed to find they are so weak. I don't want to seem them tougher than before, just make it so they can do massive grapple damage or so they attack too fast to even special attack, requiring the player to make better use of traps like the snare, gasoline, barricades, use the guns or molotovs for chompers, or rely on avoidance like make them slightly slower than sprinting speed so it's possible to run away if you are spotted. Also the injuries enemies cause seems trivial as either the well or a healing item heal them quickly. If maybe a bandage stops further health loss from bleeding and health recovers a bit each day it would make players more careful and likely to avoid combat, make each encounter carry more weight, and encourage more defensive play and pressure the player to get more cloth and alcohol for bandages before their condition deteriorates. In exchange for buffed chompers I think they should be far less common in old woods and at night, and have another enemy be more common but also considerably less dangerous

Sorry for such a long post. Perhaps I feel like a beta tester at heart or something XD

[Gold Handles]

I agree about ammo.

But have you made sure the crosshair is on top of your enemy? I think that's your issue, and it used to be mine.

I use the crosshair and have no problems hitting at any distance

[ZDENDA]

(Whole thing is too long and orientation in it is hard)

I agree that enemies are too easy and that aiming with weapons is weird.
I would be satisfied if there werent that delay when you aim.

[✚ Mariel ✚]

I am not sure if I had my cursor on them or not. It might just have been me assuming that if it's in he damage cone then that's all that matters. It could be that my characters was firing over it because I wasn't aiming close enough

However, even if that was the case the shotgun should still have hit it, they aren't exactly precision weapons and some of the buckshot would hit even if I was aiming high. Also the shotgun can miss even at say 3 metres when pointing directly at it because of the wide cone. Shotguns aren't hard to aim they're just not precision weapons, they should be a guaranteed hit if they are in the damage cone but damage and whether or not they flinch or are knocked back by the force of the shot should vary based on distance

[✚ Mariel ✚]

Also sorry for my long posts I will try to keep them shorter. I'll give putting my cursor on the enemy a try

[Gold Handles]

Originally posted by jenniferthomas28:

I am not sure if I had my cursor on them or not. It might just have been me assuming that if it's in he damage cone then that's all that matters. It could be that my characters was firing over it because I wasn't aiming close enough

However, even if that was the case the shotgun should still have hit it, they aren't exactly precision weapons and some of the buckshot would hit even if I was aiming high. Also the shotgun can miss even at say 3 metres when pointing directly at it because of the wide cone. Shotguns aren't hard to aim they're just not precision weapons, they should be a guaranteed hit if they are in the damage cone but damage and whether or not they flinch or are knocked back by the force of the shot should vary based on distance

That's your problem. I too was going "WTF is happening!" when I was first using guns lol. I thought the cone was the only thing necessary.

That said, I really like the current system. To me, it accurately simulates the difficulty of firing a gun in the dangerous situations the protaganist is in. He's scared and not used to guns, and that's reflected adequately without being unrealistic or overbearing.

Also, you're incorrect about shotguns. In most games they're inaccurate past 10 meters. Not so in real life. You could easily hit and kill a man sized target 75 meters out IRL with one blast. Their "inaccuracy" is greatly exaggerated in most games for the sake of balance. Hell, most pistols are less accurate than shotguns. So all of the guns in this game should realistically be putting bullets where you aim them, since all engagements are under 20 meters.

[✚ Mariel ✚]

Well I honestly don't know much about guns tbh

Perhaps have wolfman give you a tutorial on how to aim properly if you show him a gun? As it seems you also made the same mistake as me perhaps others will as well?

[Gold Handles]

Originally posted by jenniferthomas28:

Well I honestly don't know much about guns tbh

Perhaps have wolfman give you a tutorial on how to aim properly if you show him a gun? As it seems you also made the same mistake as me perhaps others will as well?

That seems to be a reasonable solution. But a little text popup upon first equipping a weapon would accomplish the same thing.

[Null Winter]

Wolf probably wouldn't waste ammo for a shooting lesson. It may be more believable and convenient to have the Doctor in the tutorial/prologue shoot a rabbit for food before continuing into the woods. This would fit the setting better and occur at a safe time.

[ZDENDA]

text message is enough.
you will figure out how to aim eventualy.

[✚ Mariel ✚]

You could have the shooting tutorial in the prologue, but it's hours and hours before the player even gets a gun after that they will forget

A text popup would work but not fit so well with the setting. Wolfman could just explain about the cone and the aimer like he's talking to a stupid child lol it would fit with the game and at a time when the player has a gun

[Gold Handles]

Originally posted by jenniferthomas28:

You could have the shooting tutorial in the prologue, but it's hours and hours before the player even gets a gun after that they will forget

A text popup would work but not fit so well with the setting. Wolfman could just explain about the cone and the aimer like he's talking to a stupid child lol it would fit with the game and at a time when the player has a gun

But the issue is that the player may not return to Wolfman after getting a gun. I sure didn't.

[✚ Mariel ✚]

I did frequently for lockpicks, batteries and ammo. It's cheaper than buying wire from Piotrek but as it turns out I didnt need all the ammo

[✚ Mariel ✚]

Also you have to return to show him the picture

[Null Winter]

Originally posted by jenniferthomas28:

Also you have to return to show him the picture

The picture of the Doctor? No. You can do the quest chain through your violinist friend instead.

[WitheredHusk]

I dont realy agree about the shotgun, it may have been the update, but it seems to have a smaller cone (i was using pump) than the pistol. also, shotguns dont have asmuch spread as portrayed in movies or most video games, so i wouldnt be surprised if the devs went with a more realistic approach.
asfar as this being a modern pistol, there are pistols like this back in the 1900's, same with pump actions. as for the assault rifle, if its a kalashnikov model, it can only go back about 1944 or so. but this doesnt matter, because there is a portable game system in the game, which restricts the timeperiod it can really be to about 1980's when the "game and watch" was produced.

I agree about enemies though, somtimes a feel like the savages are more dangerous because its hard to get close to them, while chompers just run at you and deal around the same amount of damage.