Aiming to Please

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, meaning if you shoot a zombie, and there’s a zombie behind him, he won’t die, but he could take slight damage from rests of bullets (even being knocked back/down and become 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 a zombie's 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 modified 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 where “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,