Is there an RPG "factor" when shooting zombies?

[Jost Amman]

I've always wondered if, when shooting zombies with a bow/gun, there is also a "Hit Chance" check like in traditional RPGs.

 

I ask this question because many times I've heard people complaining about shooting a zombie right in the head, also from afar, and missing it, even if they were sure they were spot on targeting the hit-box.

 

Some say it's just the wonky hit-boxes not working as they should.

Others say even if you hit the hit-box you still have the game check the hit against your "skill" in (e.g.) bows or the gun.

Others think it's a "lag" issue (but this also sometimes happens in SP, so...).

 

Can anyone confirm this from an official source or know the answer?

Thanks

 

@faatal @Kinyajuu @Roland @schwanz9000

[theFlu]

I'm not official, but I've specifically tested the weapons aplenty. There is no skill check.

 

The point of aim travels within the area defined by the cross hairs, that seems to be the only official source of "chance" in aiming.

 

The hit boxes are often iffy, zed boxes are pretty good atm, but partially see-thru blocks are sometimes made with bulletproof air. Lag may be an issue, I don't play MP that often and when I do I host..

 

Slap on a laser and learn to use it, 100% hit rate - or a better understanding of why you missed at least..

[Jost Amman]

There's been plenty of reports, however, of people clearly hitting what should have been the "hit-box" (often the head) but having arrows or bullets shoot through.

That can't be explained with not being good with aiming. That's why I ask for an "insider info" (be it given by a dev, or by a very expert modder).

[theFlu]

12 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

There's been plenty of reports, however, of people clearly hitting what should have been the "hit-box" (often the head) but having arrows or bullets shoot through.

I see plenty of "you what?!" from JaWoodle, but his experiences can be explained with a horrible aim. I have seen some really weird looking issues on video, but practically never in my actual testing. These are usually somewhat strained streaming systems, but I can't say anything for sure of course.

 

I've shot enough for testing to guess that if there was a constant miss chance above 1%, I'm sure I'd have an intuitive feel for it by now. And anything below that wouldn't be worth the implementation time - for having no impact on the game. But I'm not against hearing an official word about it either ...

[ElDudorino]

There is definitely a bug with aim on the primitive bow but I've only ever encountered it at point blank range. If I shoot a zombie in the chest who's right in front of me the arrow will often go through them. It never happens at range and doesn't happen with guns or melee.

[Syphon583]

45 minutes ago, ElDudorino said:

There is definitely a bug with aim on the primitive bow but I've only ever encountered it at point blank range. If I shoot a zombie in the chest who's right in front of me the arrow will often go through them. It never happens at range and doesn't happen with guns or melee.

I wonder if this occurs for any/other "projectile" ammo types. As far as I'm aware, as opposed to bullets, projectile ammo (arrows, throwables, rockets, nails, etc) are physically represented in the world when fired and have collision meshes. I'm also assuming that those projectiles don't exist in the world until fired/thrown (i.e. the arrow represented in your bow is not the actual projectile that is fired). It's possible there are some collision detection issues when a zombie is so close that the two collision meshes (zombie and projectile) occupy the same space when the player fires/throws.

 

I want to do some testing now...

[Jost Amman]

The testing on one single computer/configuration would be just anecdotal, at the most, so I don't know how much we can find out by ourselves.

That's why I was hoping for someone who can look "behind the curtain" to explain.

[ElDudorino]

It wouldn't be anecdotal if it could be reliably repeated. I've never tried to test it for reliability myself, but if I messed with it enough I could probably find the exact situations in which it triggers. I do have a feeling it would always trigger against standard-sized zombies at a given range but I'm not planning to test it myself given the like 8 minute load times on the overhaul I have currently installed.

[Uncle Al]

It's anecdotal but I've experienced what I think is the 'seems to go through the target' effect and it's only happened with bows and thrown spears, and only at close range. I speculate it could possibly be something to do with the projectile being created on the wrong side of the hit box and thus never connecting.

 

I'm fairly certain a large proportion of the 'I missed a certain shot so there must be a 'to hit' roll' reports come from the human tendency to assume low failure chances are zero when they are not. Any shot where even a tiny proportion of the area inside the cross hairs isn't on part of the target can be a miss. As noted above, spending some time with a laser sight turned on is a great way to see where your shots are actually going.

 

This effect is probably also why folks find early shotguns underwhelming when they don't have the skills or weapon mods to tighten the spread. They go for headshots and the target's head looks prominant in your cross hairs, but actually the target is only making up a modest proportion of the possible hit zone (compounded by the tendency for our eyesight to naturally overestimate the relative areas covered by a single large object compared with lots of smaller spaces around it). Every now and again you'll get a shot where many, or even all, pellets don't connect, and you actually end up doing way less damage than a much safer body shot.

[Roland]

4 hours ago, Uncle Al said:

it's only happened with bows and thrown spears

 

That is fixed for spears in A21...

[Uncle Al]

8 hours ago, Roland said:

 

That is fixed for spears in A21...

Hah! Strictly speaking it's not going to be fixed, but the incidence of situations where it might occur will be reduced to zero.

Assuming A21 is removing spear throwing completely, which I'm 100% in favour of as power attacks are so much more valuable.

[meganoth]

20 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

I've always wondered if, when shooting zombies with a bow/gun, there is also a "Hit Chance" check like in traditional RPGs.

 

I ask this question because many times I've heard people complaining about shooting a zombie right in the head, also from afar, and missing it, even if they were sure they were spot on targeting the hit-box.

 

Some say it's just the wonky hit-boxes not working as they should.

Others say even if you hit the hit-box you still have the game check the hit against your "skill" in (e.g.) bows or the gun.

Others think it's a "lag" issue (but this also sometimes happens in SP, so...).

 

Can anyone confirm this from an official source or know the answer?

Thanks

 

@faatal @Kinyajuu @Roland @schwanz9000

 

I view the hit circle as the RPG type factor because the size and the speed it diminishes are both controlled by RPG-values.

 

[doughphunghus]

18 hours ago, Syphon583 said:

I wonder if this occurs for any/other "projectile" ammo types. As far as I'm aware, as opposed to bullets, projectile ammo (arrows, throwables, rockets, nails, etc) are physically represented in the world when fired and have collision meshes. I'm also assuming that those projectiles don't exist in the world until fired/thrown (i.e. the arrow represented in your bow is not the actual projectile that is fired). It's possible there are some collision detection issues when a zombie is so close that the two collision meshes (zombie and projectile) occupy the same space when the player fires/throws.

 

I want to do some testing now...

Im maintaining a mod (yeah, i know its a tiny bit outside this discussion) that i didn't create that adds "rebar bolts" as ammo for the crossbow. They "go through" zeds quite a bit when fired from close range. I thought it was a bug with the mod/rebar mesh but it sounds like this explanation makes a lot more sense since vanilla assets are having this issue.

 

Anyway, I'm not sure it would help anyone, but if they really really wanted to try to decompile the rebar bolt assets in my mod, maybe it would have some values/data in it that could be extrapolated to vanilla and would help confirm its mesh collision issues (as the rebar bolts do it a lot, so it might be easier to reproduce/validate?). I don't know enough about the unity assets used and do not have the source  anyway, its on mu mods page if anyone wants to mess with it.

[theFlu]

On 11/15/2022 at 11:23 PM, Jost Amman said:

There's been plenty of reports, however, of people clearly hitting what should have been the "hit-box" (often the head) but having arrows or bullets shoot through.

In that thread nearby, titled something descriptive about car crashes, I ended up doing a little test shooting. I won't repeat myself here, link below.

 

But, I kinda wanted to come back to the idea of an actual mechanic being/not being there. If it's a real thing, the BEST way to see it is to take plenty of shots at a stationary target. In a lag free game, self hosted and whatnot - the more stable the game, the better. When the game works as it should, you should see it and kinda know you saw it.

 

If it's a bug, or a group of bugs, that's when you see it on laggy servers and straining machines.

 

The test set I did below.. could also be such a mechanic. Which is why I repeated it enough to get several consecutive ones, the likelihood for a triple RPG-miss would be abysmal - if the mechanic was of low enough chance not to be observed regularly. The likelihood of me having actually found a wonky frame in the idle animation is kinda tiny as well, but it seems I did; that's what I'm assuming for now.

 

 

[warmer]

I know from experience that really close ranged bow shots miss pretty often even when it should hit them square in the torso. It makes me wonder where the bow/arrow is starting. If the bow and arrow extend into the hit box on prior to release, it can't then hit the hit box in flight.

[meganoth]

13 hours ago, theFlu said:

In that thread nearby, titled something descriptive about car crashes, I ended up doing a little test shooting. I won't repeat myself here, link below.

 

But, I kinda wanted to come back to the idea of an actual mechanic being/not being there. If it's a real thing, the BEST way to see it is to take plenty of shots at a stationary target. In a lag free game, self hosted and whatnot - the more stable the game, the better. When the game works as it should, you should see it and kinda know you saw it.

 

If it's a bug, or a group of bugs, that's when you see it on laggy servers and straining machines.

 

The test set I did below.. could also be such a mechanic. Which is why I repeated it enough to get several consecutive ones, the likelihood for a triple RPG-miss would be abysmal - if the mechanic was of low enough chance not to be observed regularly. The likelihood of me having actually found a wonky frame in the idle animation is kinda tiny as well, but it seems I did; that's what I'm assuming for now.

 

 

 

Phil did a bug report, but he did not read the explanation what info to provide, did not write how to reproduce. And worst of all he wrote it happens at distance as well so the testers will likely assume he does not know about the hit circle.

 

Since you have found a good way to reproduce it you could add that to the bug report: https://community.7daystodie.com/a20-bug-database/bug-pool/collision-detection-r812/

 

 

 

[theFlu]

20 minutes ago, meganoth said:

Since you have found a good way to reproduce it you could add that to the bug report

A proper report would require video, I don't have an account to upload such.. I'll throw in a text description, but I'm not sure if I should bother QA with a goose hunt over the idle animation ...

 

I might try to OBS it anyway and see if I can pull frames from that.

[meganoth]

9 minutes ago, theFlu said:

A proper report would require video, I don't have an account to upload such.. I'll throw in a text description, but I'm not sure if I should bother QA with a goose hunt over the idle animation ...

 

I might try to OBS it anyway and see if I can pull frames from that.

 

Why should it need video? The steps to reproduce are very clear to describe in text. Just say something like this for steps to reproduce:

 

1) spawn a zombie without AI

2) go to him as close as possibe

3) shoot at his face with an arrow

4) the shot goes through (in my test x% of shots went right through without doing damage)

 

If you have anything else that needs to be said, add it to that list, but generally that is so clear even I could reproduce it with my two left hands 😉. For good measure you probably should use the template they provide.

Edited November 23, 2022 by meganoth (see edit history)

[theFlu]

4 minutes ago, meganoth said:

Why should it need video?

Because even with knowing the frame to hit, my success rate was around 15-30% for the general case; only shooting several in a row from the same setup was markedly easier. Without video it's going to be "can't repro" in no time. With a video the tester can at least see it happened (or see I'm just tripping), and know exactly what was done. There's plenty I won't be able to describe, and plenty I don't even know, some good evidence gathers a lot of that.

 

It's not mandatory, sure, but in this kind of case it's a lot more useful than the template they want you to fill...

[theFlu]

5 hours ago, meganoth said:

even I could reproduce it with my two left hands 😉.

Well, that's a couple hours I'm not getting back.. but I managed to post a vid of my trial on LBRY: Needs a download (23MB), and I'm not sure if it actually works. Have fun testing it thou

 

https://community.7daystodie.com/a20-bug-database/bug-pool/collision-detection-r812/?tab=comments#comment-8064

 

EDIT: Fixed my nonsense, works in browser now.

Edited November 23, 2022 by theFlu (see edit history)

[meganoth]

10 hours ago, theFlu said:

Because even with knowing the frame to hit, my success rate was around 15-30% for the general case; only shooting several in a row from the same setup was markedly easier. Without video it's going to be "can't repro" in no time. With a video the tester can at least see it happened (or see I'm just tripping), and know exactly what was done. There's plenty I won't be able to describe, and plenty I don't even know, some good evidence gathers a lot of that.

 

So you think a tester would only try this 2 times after you told him the success rate was about 10-30%? You have a low opinion of testers. On the other hand your repro steps were excellent work and it will be really hard for the testers to miss that now.

 

 

10 hours ago, theFlu said:

It's not mandatory, sure, but in this kind of case it's a lot more useful than the template they want you to fill...

 

When you see the average quality of bug reports you know why they want people to fill out that template. The template is not really to get information about the bug but about the poster.

 

 

[bachgaman]

On 11/16/2022 at 2:06 AM, Jost Amman said:

I've always wondered if, when shooting zombies with a bow/gun, there is also a "Hit Chance" check like in traditional RPGs.

 

I ask this question because many times I've heard people complaining about shooting a zombie right in the head, also from afar, and missing it, even if they were sure they were spot on targeting the hit-box.

 

Some say it's just the wonky hit-boxes not working as they should.

Others say even if you hit the hit-box you still have the game check the hit against your "skill" in (e.g.) bows or the gun.

Others think it's a "lag" issue (but this also sometimes happens in SP, so...).

 

Can anyone confirm this from an official source or know the answer?

Thanks

 

@faatal @Kinyajuu @Roland @schwanz9000

People are always looking for excuses for their mistakes. In any shooter, people cry about bad hitboxes and bad game engines, supposedly because of this they cannot hit the target. But we know why this happens.

[theFlu]

12 hours ago, meganoth said:

So you think a tester would only try this 2 times after you told him the success rate was about 10-30%? You have a low opinion of testers.

Nope, I expect myself to describe it in a confusing way, have the tester misread my miswriting, and end up rigorously testing on a wrong thing. There's plenty of frames to choose from, the idle animation is probably what, 15 seconds, 30 frames a sec (or something).. having my 15% lowball as the actual chance, you'll need 7 shots on the Right frame. With those numbers, taking shots randomly would be 3150 shots. Do I expect a tester to take 3k shots on my honest "I didn't miss, I swear"? ... actually yes, but if I can reduce it down to a 30, I should.

 

For this specific case though; I mostly expect the animations getting a for-gold quality sweep with some proper tooling later - figuring out that frame right now is likely wasted effort.

 

12 hours ago, meganoth said:

On the other hand your repro steps were excellent work and it will be really hard for the testers to miss that now.

Thanks! - I used to work with bug reports, filling some myself, reproing plenty, sending a whole lot back to the sender for more info. It's not easy on any side.

 

12 hours ago, meganoth said:

When you see the average quality of bug reports you know why they want people to fill out that template. The template is not really to get information about the bug but about the poster.

Yeh, I know.. but I kinda disagree on the template, it's not a psych test on the reporter, all of those can be deciding factors on a lot of different bugs. It's a tricky thing to balance, ask too many seemingly irrelevant things and the reporter fills nothing, ask too few and you start playing message-ping-pong.

 

[Jost Amman]

6 hours ago, bachgaman said:

People are always looking for excuses for their mistakes. In any shooter, people cry about bad hitboxes and bad game engines, supposedly because of this they cannot hit the target. But we know why this happens.

So you're saying there's no bug, and all the people complaining, and even video proof is all baloney?

Thanks for officially clarifying this, we were all waiting for your expert opinion!  

[meganoth]

1 hour ago, theFlu said:

Yeh, I know.. but I kinda disagree on the template, it's not a psych test on the reporter, all of those can be deciding factors on a lot of different bugs. It's a tricky thing to balance, ask too many seemingly irrelevant things and the reporter fills nothing, ask too few and you start playing message-ping-pong.

 

 

It is partly information, psycho-test and a way to get posters go through a routine and not forget basic things to do when to test for vanilla (like clearing settings for each new alpha and turning off mods for bug reporting). Especially the four questions are more or less a reminder how to do it correctly. The question about mods or "have you validated your files" have only one correct answer and the complementary answer gets an immediate "Please do ... and test again"-

 

Edited November 24, 2022 by meganoth (see edit history)