We Should Have More Firearms Variety

[GypsyDragon]

In 7 Days to Die, there is an okay-ish variety of melee weapons and bows in particular have great variety as it is a single weapon that yet has 5 different variations from Primitive to Wooden to Iron Crossbow, Compound Bow and Compound Crossbow. Bows are a good example of how varied weapons should be and yet for some reason, firearm variety is severely lacking in 7 Days.

 

There are currently only 4 calibers to choose from: 7.62x39mm, 9x19mm, .44 Magnum, and Shotgun Shells (I presume 12-Gauge?). .44 Magnum seems to be more rare than the others and only really works in two weapons in the game. This means regardless of how you play you end up with enormous stockpiles of ammunition and many guns that all use just a few types of ammunition by the end-stage of the game. I think this game desperately needs more calibers and more weapons to choose from. Below I will outline different categories of weapons and why adding certain weapons and certain calibers of ammunition would just make so much sense as an addition to the game.

 

Rifles are the category of weapon that seems to have the most issues right now. It makes no sense whatsoever for rifles to do high damage per shot and be single-shot weapons that have to be reloaded after every shot and then suddenly move up to even more damage and go semi-automatic at the same time with the Lever Action Rifle. The Sniper Rifle is also extremely overpowered being not only extremely powerful per shot but semi-automatic with a decent capacity magazine and has a higher fire rate as well.

 

So I would add 308 Winchester and 556 NATO calibers to the game and separate Sniper Rifles into their own category of weapons from Semi-Auto Rifles. 308 Win ammo should be used for Sniper Rifles only and 556 NATO along with the existing 7.62 can be for semi-auto and fully automatic machine guns and Rifleman DMRs. DMRs and Machine Guns should both have options in 5.56 and 7.62 to mix things up. "Rifleman" and "Sniper" perks could be their own perks both under the Perception Tree. Sniper Rifles - after the break-action pipe rifle - should all be single shot/Bolt-Action. After the hunting rifle, there should be an entry-level bolt-action rifle with a box magazine akin to a basic Ruger American Ranch 300. It would have slightly higher damage and fire rate than the hunting rifle because instead of hand-loading a round into the rifle with each shot, you simply cycle the bolt action and then fire again. Magazine capacity for the Ruger should be 5 rounds.

 

Ruger American Ranch 300

 

 

Next up the progression tree for sniper rifles should be a more premium, high end Sniper Rifle that does more damage per round and has longer range and can cycle the bolt-action a bit quicker but still only has a 5-round magazine capacity - A Christiansen Arms MPR or MHR Would be a good model to use as inspiration.

 

Christiansen Arms MPR

 

The final Rifle in the Sniper Rifle in the Sniper tree should be an incredibly powerful, large, Bolt-Action Sniper rifle and should have a slightly larger 7-round standard magazine capacity and still use 308 Win ammo for simplicity's sake in the game; even though IRL this kind of rifle would probably be more of a 300 Win-Mag or 338 Lapua Magnum. A Barrett MRAD in 338 Lapua would seve an as excellent inspiration for the game model of the final 308 Sniper Rifle.

 

Barrett MRAD chambered in .338 Lapua Magnum

 

While "Sniper" can be its own perk under perception for these extremely high damage but low fire rate Rifles, the existing "Rifleman" Perk should be used for Semi-Automatic DMR-Style Rifles. There should be options available in both 556 NATO and 762 and should start with a Pipe DMR that has a magazine capacity of 5-10 and still be semi-automatic with a fire rate a bit slower than a tier 1 9mm pistol currently in game. DMRs should be incompatible with the full-auto trigger mod to prevent using them as Machine Gun replacements. The weapon after a Pipe DMR should be modeled after a cheap, basic 556 AR or 762 AK. Not all AKs are fully automatic, you could separate the DMR AK from the standard full-auto machine gun by modelling the DMR AK off a different kind of AK or using something unique as a model like the CMMG Mutant which is the 7.62 AK caliber in an AR-15 platform. DMRs should do just a bit more damage per round than full-auto Machine Gun equivalents but should also do considerably less damage per round than a sniper rifle. This basic Anderson AR-15 can serve as a model inspiration for the first step after the Pipe DMR and should have a magazine capacity of 15 or 20 rounds.

 

Very Cheap Basic Anderson MFG AR-15 in 556 NATO (Its literally $400 IRL LOL)

 

The Third Progression of DMR Rifles could be a more typical good-quality Semi-Automatic 556 AR or 7.62 AK that most gun-owning Americans actually choose to own. These should do slightly more damage per round than the Anderson and have 30-round magazine capacity.  Something like these CMMG 556 and 762 Rifles would be ideal models for the game:

 

CMMG Resolute 556 NATO AR-15

 

CMMG Mutant - 7.62x39mm Rounds in an AR Platform (Dissent Bufferless series of Rifles)

 

The next stage of progression for DMR Rifles could be modeled after a higher-end bullpup to mix up the design and keep it from looking too much like the previous CMMG rifles. In Real life, the Desert Tech Wyvern Semi-Auto Bullpup is available chambered in both 556 NAO and 7.62x39mm so this would be fully accurate in game. I would stick with 30-round magazine capacity.

 

Desert Tech Weapons - Wyvern (Available in 556 or 762 as well as other calibers)

 

The final tier of DMRs in the game should be modeled after higher caliber DMRs from Real life but still use 556 or 762 in game for simplicity. The model will give the player the presence of a powerful Designated Marksman Rifle. It should do very high damage per round but still be semi-automatic and still have 30-round magazine capacity, but you could make the maximum fire rate/click speed a bit higher. An FN SCAR 17S is a 308 Winchester DMR that is Semi-Automatic for the civilian market in real life. It would serve as a perfect model for the final progression of DMR Rifles in the game.

 

FN SCAR-17S

 

To keep this thread from getting too ridiculously long, I will not add any more images and shorten the summaries of each weapon class. I think you get the idea at this point.

 

This same weapon overhaul can come to Pistols/Handguns as well as SMGs by adding the caliber 10mm Auto to the game which is a caliber with a slight bit more power than .357 Magnum but is weaker than .44 Magnum. 10mm Auto is growing in popularity these days and now several SMG style weapons and handguns are available in 10mm Auto.

 

SMGs should be available in Game in 9mm and 10mm and start from something cheap and small after a Pipe 9mm Sub-Gun (15-round magazine capacity) and Pipe 10mm Sub gun (10-round magazine capacity). The first progression could be modeled after the 9mm Grease Gun and have a 20-round magazine capacity in 9mm and 15-rounds in 10mm.

 

The next progression could be modeled after a reasonable modern Sub-Gun style weapon. These are Semi-Automatic in real life for the civilian  market but would be Full-Auto for the game. Good models could be the CZ Scorpion 3+ or Grand Power Stribog SP9-A3/SP10-A3 and could have 30-round magazines in 9mm and 20-round magazines in 10mm.

 

The final SMG progression could be high-end SMGs like the HK MP5 in both 9mm and 10mm and would still have 20 and 30-round magazines but would have a higher fire rate, more damage per round, and the extended magazine mod would increase the 9mm version to a capacity of 50 rounds.

 

Pistols/Handguns should similarly be overhauled with at least 3 progression weapons for each of the calibers 9mm, 10mm, and .44 Magnum. Handguns should be semi-automatic except if you were to have a 4th or 5th progression weapon in which case those could be burst fire or fully automatic and do the same damage as similar-tier SMGs but have a slower fire rate and smaller magazine capacity. However, handguns could be much less expensive to craft and have slightly more durability than SMGs to still give players a reason to have a handgun.

 

As for .44 Magnum, you could have a Pipe .44 Mag 5-shot Revolver and then move up to a cheap .44 Mag 6-Shot Revolver such as a Taurus 44 Tracker 4" barrel, and then to a high-end, powerful 6 or 7-shot revolver such as a Smith and Wesson 629 Stealth Hunter 44 with 7.5" barrel. Finally you end up back at the Desert Eagle .44 we already have in game.

 

With shotguns, currently you go straight from a pump-action to a Auto-Shotgun. You could fill that gap with a Spaz-12: A Semi-Automatic Shotgun that requires no pump action besides once after reloading and has an 8-round capacity by default.

 

Make this same sort-of overhaul to Machine Guns and you would easily have over 50 firearms to choose from as you play through the game, giving you plenty of variety and things to look forward to as you play with a total of 7 different calibers of ammunition to scavange: 9mm, 10mm, .44 Mag, 5.56, 7.62, 308, and Shotgun Shells.

Edited April 3 by GypsyDragon (see edit history)

[Riamus]

They have said they aren't planning to add more weapons/ammo to the game with a possible exception of a third tier of baton.  They don't want a bunch of guns that all do basically the same thing, where the look of it is the only real difference.  Yes, you can have varying damage based on caliber and you can have some minor differences like rate of fire but that's not enough for what they want in this game.  For guns, they pretty much just want pistol, shotgun, automatic, and sniper.  And they chose to make the automatics part of the other gun trees (SMG, auto shotgun).  These limited weapon types allow for fairly different uses so they aren't the same as one another.  And they are sticking, for now, to only 3 tiers of weapons.  So having a bunch of different pistols with different calibers isn't an option for what they want.  They did end up making pistols have a bit more range in tiers than most everything else, so that is something - pipe, regular, 44, vulture, SMG - but that's mainly because they are kind of treating the 44 and vulture as a separate set of weapons from their 9mm counterparts.  But generally speaking, they just don't want so much variety without much difference beyond how it looks.  So although you put a lot of effort into your suggestion, it just isn't likely to happen.  **MAYBE** they will consider a weapon DLC after gold but that's about the only change, I think.

 

Your best option is to use mods that provide additional weapons.  There are a number of weapon mods available.

 

As far as having a lot of extra 44 ammo, that's entirely dependent on whether or not you're using 44 or vulture.  Once I have those, I stop using 9mm entirely and stick to mostly melee with vulture for range or when I need to clear a bunch of zombies quickly.  Because of that, all my 9mm and shotgun ammo are only used in turrets, 7.62 is used only for sniper on horde night (this one actually stockpiles for me because I only use it for horde night), and 44 is used regularly and doesn't stockpile too much.  If I used less melee, it wouldn't stockpile at all.

 

If anything, I'd like to see them offer turrets that use 44 and 7.62 ammo to allow using those calibers if you're not using them for your own guns.

[GypsyDragon]

38 minutes ago, Riamus said:

They have said they aren't planning to add more weapons/ammo to the game with a possible exception of a third tier of baton.  They don't want a bunch of guns that all do basically the same thing, where the look of it is the only real difference.  Yes, you can have varying damage based on caliber and you can have some minor differences like rate of fire but that's not enough for what they want in this game.  For guns, they pretty much just want pistol, shotgun, automatic, and sniper.  And they chose to make the automatics part of the other gun trees (SMG, auto shotgun).  These limited weapon types allow for fairly different uses so they aren't the same as one another.  And they are sticking, for now, to only 3 tiers of weapons.  So having a bunch of different pistols with different calibers isn't an option for what they want.  They did end up making pistols have a bit more range in tiers than most everything else, so that is something - pipe, regular, 44, vulture, SMG - but that's mainly because they are kind of treating the 44 and vulture as a separate set of weapons from their 9mm counterparts.  But generally speaking, they just don't want so much variety without much difference beyond how it looks.  So although you put a lot of effort into your suggestion, it just isn't likely to happen.  **MAYBE** they will consider a weapon DLC after gold but that's about the only change, I think.

 

Your best option is to use mods that provide additional weapons.  There are a number of weapon mods available.

 

As far as having a lot of extra 44 ammo, that's entirely dependent on whether or not you're using 44 or vulture.  Once I have those, I stop using 9mm entirely and stick to mostly melee with vulture for range or when I need to clear a bunch of zombies quickly.  Because of that, all my 9mm and shotgun ammo are only used in turrets, 7.62 is used only for sniper on horde night (this one actually stockpiles for me because I only use it for horde night), and 44 is used regularly and doesn't stockpile too much.  If I used less melee, it wouldn't stockpile at all.

 

If anything, I'd like to see them offer turrets that use 44 and 7.62 ammo to allow using those calibers if you're not using them for your own guns.

 

Well ya, thats the point - once you get .44 you stop using 9mm and end up with a huge stockpile until maybe you find an SMG eventually (seems to be the most rare weapon in the entire game I never find them until the very end of a playthrough).

 

Also all of these weapons have pretty significant differences. Not only am I suggesting more ammo capacity and slightly higher fire rate for each tier, but also a bit more damage with a tier jump. Those 3 small differences add up to a completely different experience with each weapon. Its also why I only suggested adding 2 rifle calibers and one pistol caliber - because 3 calibers of each is enough variety to keep things interesting without over-complication and besides, in an apocolypse literally every one of these calibers would actually be scavenge-able except 10mm Auto which is still a pretty niche round for now.

 

I suppose as one final hoo-rah you could even add 20 Gauge shotgun shells so now you have two different calibers of shotguns.

 

I recently played with a couple weapon pack mods installed and its just way more fun having actual variety in firearms. You could eliminate one or two from my list and still have plenty, however there is no doubt that there simply isn't enough selection right now. You could simplify each class down to 3 tiers of weapons I guess and still have good variety if you added those other classes of weapons...

 

I do agree that turrets should be available in 44 and 7.62 tho, kinda strange they arent already. Wouldnt be hard to implement either.

Edited April 3 by GypsyDragon (see edit history)

[Riamus]

I get it.  But they seem intent on not adding more.  For this game, other than just for variety, there isn't much rain for other weapons.  I agree that variety is a good thing, but when that is really the only thing, it isn't an incentive for them.  Damage, rate of fire, amp capacity... These don't really make a weapon all that different from others.

[GypsyDragon]

On 4/3/2024 at 2:00 PM, Riamus said:

I get it.  But they seem intent on not adding more.  For this game, other than just for variety, there isn't much rain for other weapons.  I agree that variety is a good thing, but when that is really the only thing, it isn't an incentive for them.  Damage, rate of fire, amp capacity... These don't really make a weapon all that different from others.

 

I mean... It does make a big difference though. Thats why going from the current Hunting Rifle to Lever Action feels like a completely different world: More damage per round, higher magazine capacity and faster fire rate. Thats all it is in comparison to the Hunting Rifle.

 

To be honest that particular jump from Hunting Rifle to Lever Action makes the most sense in the game. The Lever Action fires only a bit more quickly because the action of the level takes a sec, the capacity of the Lever Action makes sense and I would say the only jump that seems rather large is the damage per shot.

 

But then all of a sudden you go from a Lever Action that does fairly well on a horde night as long as you build a corridor or bridge that lines up zombies - to a Semi-Automatic Sniper Rifle that can down entire hordes with ease and no skill because its so OP with its extremely high damage per @%$# plus a pretty damn fast fire rate and really good capacity especially with an extended magazine mod.

 

Obviously there is a gap there that could easily be filled, and instead of just filling it, replace all the firearms in each of the categories with a whole new set where the progression is more evenly spaced out and gradual leading to more gameplay before you get bored and start a new world.

[Riamus]

3 hours ago, GypsyDragon said:

 

I mean... It does make a big difference though. Thats why going from the current Hunting Rifle to Lever Action feels like a completely different world: More damage per round, higher magazine capacity and faster fire rate. Thats all it is in comparison to the Hunting Rifle.

 

To be honest that particular jump from Hunting Rifle to Lever Action makes the most sense in the game. The Lever Action fires only a bit more quickly because the action of the level takes a sec, the capacity of the Lever Action makes sense and I would say the only jump that seems rather large is the damage per shot.

 

But then all of a sudden you go from a Lever Action that does fairly well on a horde night as long as you build a corridor or bridge that lines up zombies - to a Semi-Automatic Sniper Rifle that can down entire hordes with ease and no skill because its so OP with its extremely high damage per @%$# plus a pretty damn fast fire rate and really good capacity especially with an extended magazine mod.

 

Obviously there is a gap there that could easily be filled, and instead of just filling it, replace all the firearms in each of the categories with a whole new set where the progression is more evenly spaced out and gradual leading to more gameplay before you get bored and start a new world.

I guess what I meant was that you have a progression in the current weapons, where you go from low damage/rate of fire/etc to high damage/rate of fire/etc.  It isn't linear but it's still progression.  If you add in other weapons of the same basic type that are similar in those numbers, then it's not really providing much beyond variety.  They aren't currently adding more tiers to what we have, so the only way to add more weapons is to remove some or to have an entirely different weapon type.  And I don't think they'll add more weapon types to the base game.  And yes, like you said, they could replace what they have but I really don't see them doing that this late in development.

 

As I said, I like having variety, even just for the sake of variety.  I'd be happy to see more weapons, even if they were nothing more than skins on top of existing weapons (a claymore sword skin on top of the machete, for example) just to have some variety.  But they seem pretty clear that they aren't looking to add more weapons before gold.  So that leaves either a DLC if they choose to do one or else mods.  

[GypsyDragon]

2 hours ago, Riamus said:

I guess what I meant was that you have a progression in the current weapons, where you go from low damage/rate of fire/etc to high damage/rate of fire/etc.  It isn't linear but it's still progression.  If you add in other weapons of the same basic type that are similar in those numbers, then it's not really providing much beyond variety.  They aren't currently adding more tiers to what we have, so the only way to add more weapons is to remove some or to have an entirely different weapon type.  And I don't think they'll add more weapon types to the base game.  And yes, like you said, they could replace what they have but I really don't see them doing that this late in development.

 

As I said, I like having variety, even just for the sake of variety.  I'd be happy to see more weapons, even if they were nothing more than skins on top of existing weapons (a claymore sword skin on top of the machete, for example) just to have some variety.  But they seem pretty clear that they aren't looking to add more weapons before gold.  So that leaves either a DLC if they choose to do one or else mods.  

 

Well yeah I am aware that they aren't really planning on more weapons in Vanilla. Thats why this is the "Pimp Dreams" Section - Its suggestions.

[SylenThunder]

2 hours ago, GypsyDragon said:

 

Well yeah I am aware that they aren't really planning on more weapons in Vanilla. Thats why this is the "Pimp Dreams" Section - Its suggestions.

It's also why we generally leave stuff like this to the modders. There are quite a number of mods that add weaponry for your pleasure.

[GypsyDragon]

3 hours ago, SylenThunder said:

It's also why we generally leave stuff like this to the modders. There are quite a number of mods that add weaponry for your pleasure.

 

I am aware, would just like to see some variety in Vanilla.