Melee & Ranged Combat

[mdf25]

Greetings

 

So I was playing A17E these past few days and wanted to give some feedback on the melee and ranged combat systems that I've seen so far. Overall I'm liking a lot of the combat's additional challenge, but I have noticed some weird things.

 

 

Suggestions for potential improvements

 

Headshot multiplier of 1.5x seems a little too low for the zombies. In early game, doing headshots is really not worth it because a zombie that would go down in 2 body shots with a power attack also go down in 2 headshots with power attacks, so makes it less worthwhile until later. I'd suggest adding it so that a headshot would at least knock down a female zombie in one shot and a fat zed in 2. Regular male zeds would take 1 to 2, depending. (this is with a wooden club or iron reinforced club). For bladed weapons it could be a little more at the cost of less reach, and for heavy weapons it could be the most at the cost of stamina.

 

Gun and bow headshot damage also seems really low. Having to sink 5 arrows into a head to knock a zombie down seems a little much, same with bullets. Again upping the headshot damage a bit for arrows and even more for bullets and shells would be a good thing, perhaps to balance it out arrows could take 3 feathers to craft instead of 1 feather and guns could overall be rare to find, making each one precious. Removing pistols as a toilet drop would be a good way to going that or at least make it super rare. Shotgun messiah crates could contain more ammo as opposed to guns, making ammo common but guns rare. But yeah, a 7.62 through the skull should be crippling, and not almost equivalent to a body shot. Just my opinion on that one

 

Melee crosshair swing seems a little weird considering that when you swing a club or a weapon, you do damage in an arc in front of you and not in a tiny point where a crosshair would be. I think the hit should follow the arc as in A16 and previous versions, and not be directly over the crosshair, as I've seen a sledgehammer go right through a zombie's head and not register a hit. Sideways attacks would use a horizontal hit arc, and others would use the vertical one. In general, if a zombie is in front of you whenever you're going to swing sideways with an axe, pickaxe or sledge, it's going to get hit if it's anywhere within that arc. I know Joel likes Skyrim, so think of how the 1H and 2H weapon mechanics work in that your crosshair doesn't need to be directly over an enemy to register a hit, as long as that enemy falls within the swing of your sword (though I don't expect it to be forgiving like Skyrim's 'area' arc if you're not 100% accurate and rather have just a line arc).

 

I've also seen an axe/sledge appear to hit 2 or 3 zombies (they would all be lined up ready for a hit) but the axe only does damage to the one where the crosshair is at, completely missing the one to the right where in reality the axe would hit. By default these arcs could be done so weapons hit all targets in the arc, since if you swing an axe and knock one thing, with enough force the swing could continue (though with less power) through to the next target with less damage and so on. A perk could then be made to allow the swing to be carried through with more power with each level of the perk increasing the damage carried through to the next target. So without any investment the damage would be a 90% reduction from target 1 to 2, then each level reduces it to 80, 60, 40, 20, and 0 for each level.

 

Anyways those are my musings I'm loving A17 so far