Howdy all, it’s Mondoid time again! This week we’re all at the grindstone trying to get those last missing promised gameplay features into the game, as detailed here.

That’s not to say we don’t have some juicy info about what’s coming. This week its from Romain, who has been revamping the ranged weapon systems to reintroduce aiming skills.

In Romain’s own words (with a few edits!):

Weapon Changes

The ranged weapon have receive a bunch of fixes/changes, I tried to stick to the reality, even if I’ve never fired a gun.. Meh.

First thing, bullets don’t really pierce zombies now, it mean if you shoot a zombie, and there’s a zombie behind him, he won’t die, but he could take slight damage from rest of bullets (even being knocked back/down and turn as a crawler, yay for crawlers!).

So by knowing this, you already know the shotgun has been really nerfed!

The range of weapon has been slightly nerfed, as well as their angle too (mostly for the pistol), that means you will need to be at the right place to aim for a shot. No more 45° kill with a pistol.

Guns have now a critical chance (modified by aiming skill, but more on that below), understand it as a “head shot”.

For example a pistol can have a great chance of critical, while the shotgun will just blow up zombie chest (in a bloody glory moment !).

Weapon also have a recoil delay, meaning you can’t fire like an assault rifle with the shotgun.

It will mean no more taking a 300 strong zombies horde with 3 shotgun shells.

So by now, I’m sure you understood that the shotgun is a good weapon to start, and the pistol will be more deadly at end level, because it has a larger capacity, less recoil, makes less noise and way better range/critical chance than the shotgun.

Take your time

Second thing I’ve changed, is the physical aiming and panic influence over guns, you’ll now need to aim for a little moment to shoot accurately. If you run then shoot, your shot will likely be far away from your target, but again, aiming skill decrease this malus.

Panic!

Yes, Panic can reduce the hit chance/damage done, panic usually mean trembling hands, so it’ll take a good skill to bypass that and make a true shot while you’re surrounded by zombies, again, it depend on weapon, a pistol will require concentration, while a shotgun will almost always hit his target(s).

Just stand still, breathe, take your time, and blow that head up. Please.

The glorious aiming skill

While making my changes to weapons, I saw that the aiming skill barely modify the hit chance, damage and stuff, well, that’s the past.

Aiming skill will now influence a LOT of things! Here’s a list :

Hit chance! Like really? It require skill to aim correctly? Jeeze Devs nowaday…

Critical chance! Yup, it’s not a FPS : “aim for head = head shot”, we’re in isometric world, so I can add a skill modifier to this (remind you of Fallout?)

Range ! Range is now also influenced by aiming skill, at least for the pistol.

Angle! Well ok, that may sound weird, but because we’re in an isometric world, aiming can be hard, so now, with a better aiming skill, you won’t have to be at the perfect angle for a straight shot (again, specially for the pistol).

Rate of fire! Well, I’m still trying to know how the great shooter can shoot faster than others (maybe it’s a combination of aiming + strength ?)

It’ll mean that you can avoid being violently murdered by a guy with a pistol if he can’t really aim with it, you could try to run toward him with an axe and take him down before he gets you, and with a bit of luck you may get an axe to his head!

WAIT RJ, YOU TOLD ME THERE’S A NEW WEAPON, GIMME MY AK47

Ah. Assault Rifle ? No way. Well, not now!

So, let’s do a little run down of the current ranged weapons:

Shotgun have small range, big angle, low critical chance.

Pistol have better range, small angle, big critical chance (specially at high level).

IT’S A BOLT ACTION RIFLE ! Huge distance, huge critical chance, long recoil time, small clip, so yup, it’ll need a lot of practices (understand aiming skill) to master that gun, but I swear with it, you can take down lot of danger from a long range !

Oh also, we won’t have new model/animation for it now, I’ll re-use the shotgun one, but I’m sure Andy will be on it soon, aye Andy ?

And for the future ?

I definitely want to see a bow in game, crafting weapon, silent, powerful, arrow piercing.. And require tons of skills to be mastered.

Also bear in mind that all this number will be balanced. You don’t know it, but Chris have a rule for my stuff : take all calculations I do and multiply them by 20, because I suck at balancing things

I may do an explanation video of it, with different weapons/aiming skill to show you the difference between a Daryl and.. Well, me for example (oh wait, I had a pistol air gun in my childhood.. I’m sure I’m a beast with weapons!)

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