Arti's Gun Rebalance

[stoic moth]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3577435658

Mod is up and open for testing!

[carmine estuary]

You accidentally repeated the first paragraph of that description

[stoic moth]

Oop

Fixed

[carmine estuary]

Hmm, your interpretation of gun balance is a bit different from mine heh

[stoic moth]

Yeah, but this is a first draft. I'm open to feedback!

[carmine estuary]

My interpretation goes like...

Light rifles (.223/5.56) should have the highest base accuracy but low raw damage, so they need critical hits. Aiming skill drastically increases crit chances

Shotguns - Big, heavy, low crit... but easy to use and does hefty damage. Same drawbacks as in vanilla, mainly shotguns and shells are heavy

Heavy rifles (.308) have less base accuracy but inflict a lot of damage. Moderate crit and accuracy growth.

Small handguns (.38, 9mm, .45) should be pathetic across the board: low accuracy, low damage, low crit. But all stats have drastic growths with Aiming skill. The main advantage of handguns is light weight.

Handcannons (.44) have the lowest base accuracy out of all the guns, but if it connects, it does hefty damage. Aiming skill drastically increases accuracy

In the end (Aiming 10), all guns must be able to consistently one-shot kill the zombies

[stoic moth]

Currently looking at increasing .44 crit growth, M14 damage, and decreasing MSR788s accuracy growth

[gilded osprey]

Why ⅓ projectile count for shotgun instead of doing an additional ⅓ to damage?

For reference her changes (she posted in the normal b42 chat)

Btw from code readability perspective I’d personally rename gun to gunName (or gunId or gunKey) and newgun to gun

It’s really great you do it like this now, very update resistent like this

[gilded osprey]

After checking it out a bit: I love the general philosophy! <3

[stoic moth]

seemed more elegant, and means if they fix it in the future I don't have to scramble to change my fix

also it makes it so that people using the shotguns who have a mod to see weapon stats in-game aren't caught off guard by seeing a gun that deals like 0.15-0.2 damage

[gilded osprey]

That makes sense. But I think it’s sad if it reduces its multi-hit capability 🙈

[stoic moth]

It didn't seem to impact it too much, but I'm also biased against shotguns since I am a bit tired of them always being the best gun in the game

[gilded osprey]

I guess you mean best gun "per shot", right? Because with the shooting time and reload time assault rifle should be easily better if you give headshots left and right (I mean with normal shotgun values at least, not what is going on in 42.12 vanilla right now lol)

[strong oak]

An interesting approach indeed 👌
Is there a reason why you didnt include stats like Min/MaxRange and Sound Radius/Volume?

[stoic moth]

I'm happy with them as is!

[stoic moth]

per shot, with aiming level also in mind

an assault rifle might end up on par at aiming 6, but the shotgun was doing that at aiming 1

[stoic moth]

it also makes adjustments very easy since I don't have to scroll through the entirety of the weapons_firearms list

[gray cedar]

So far, these versions of the guns feel juuuust the right level of "mid, but not totally useless" at Aim 0, or Aim3+panic

Maaaybe the M9 feels a smidge weak at early levels, and could be more frontloaded?
I mean, pistols are not the easiest gun type for an amateur to wield, but it's not even doing a great job "nearly at point blank when shooting to be able to constantly land critical headshots", a philosophy I generally agree with

[gilded osprey]

Feedback: I changed the values, so that the shotgun has 9 pellets again but I divided the damage further by 3, and it feels so much better. Since you can now do really low damage graze shots with a single pallet

[stoic moth]

gotcha

what if I increased its base crit chance to, say, 35%?

so it's got 65% chance to crit at aiming 3

[stoic moth]

what would you say the difference is? I couldn't see much of it in my own testing

[gilded osprey]

It’s the same damage if you aim your shot properly and all pellets hit the same zombie. But when you don’t give your char time to aim, and panic, and low aiming level etc., especially with chance to hit, you can just do a single graze pellet with like 2 damage lol (2 damage as in 0.02 damage)

And if you aim more properly it feels more like a shotgun since more pellets

You can hit 3-4 zombies with low damage if you shoot far away with 9 pallets

[stoic moth]

Alright, cool!

Has anyone tried out the bolt actions yet?

Unironically, I think I might have buffed them too much

[gray cedar]

I dunno if it needs that large of a universal buff! Maybe that+reduce the crit growth, yeah
M9 still does that aforementioned "job" nicely at higher Aiming levels

[stoic moth]

also, the .44 handguns, I intended for them to kinda overcome their lack of crits with just having really high base damage, but I'm not sure if that's working out

[gray cedar]

uhhh, yeah wow. I mean, I want there to be a reason to use the MSR788 and not just feel like you're wasting .308, but....it's really good even at Aiming 2 or 3.
but you can actually use both bolt-actions to snipe at long ranges if you ARE getting crits. Which to me, is a huge improvement from vanilla

[stoic moth]

I think I need to nerf the msr788s aim growth, 13 is just too much

[gray cedar]

I will say, forgetting about numbers and just thinking about this as an end user?
The bolt actions feel slightly, but noticeably more fun than vanilla's weapons! 👍
Like, I'm a pretty huge mod purist but I might actually...add this into my core list.

[stoic moth]

I still want them to be good at their job, but I think the msr788 is just a bit too strong right now

it's supposed to be the less accurate, more powerful rifle, but right now it actually passes the MSR700 at aiming 2

this is because previously the msr700 had 75 base accuracy, but 25 aim growth, which resulted in this:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/136501320340209664/1422302398969417779/Untitled_video_-_Made_with_Clipchamp_27.mp4?ex=68dd7f55&is=68dc2dd5&hm=fb9c1b9be5424b154ddf1af62db7327fd66fc3adf51e58f46cdac05f55de4c5d&

I'm really really happy to hear that you like the mod though!

[gray cedar]

Yeah, its way better than the MSR700 as a sniper, at any medium/high Aiming lvs it seems

[stoic moth]

that's the intention, but I want it to fully eclipse the msr700 around aiming 4 or 5, right before the M14 comes online, so there's some choice in the matter on where you want to spend your .308 ammo

speaking of though, the m14 just feels bad right now. I think I was too conservative with its damage numbers, so it doesn't always 1 shot headshot

[gilded osprey]

I think I’m the only one who feels like not every gun always needs to 1-shot, even at 10 aiming, especially when you use tough enemies (the max HP possible)

I think it’s okay if Assasult Rifles and normal pistols don’t always 1-shot tough enemies, even at 10 aiming. Normal Pistols are the lowest tier weapon and Assault Rifles are automatic for a reason

Altho wait, you said the M14 is too weak, which isn’t auto, hmm

[carmine estuary]

M16 full auto is garbage

[carmine estuary]

Ammo is tight, "range" is not actually that big of an advantage as you may initially think

The power of the guns over long blade and spear has always been that it quickly annihilates hordes of zombies, at the cost of needing ammo.

Why should I use a guns if it still needs 2-5 shots to kill zombies, when Long Blade, Spear, and even Axe can one-shot Z's consistently?

"No exertion" is also not an advantage especially if the guns cannot kill hordes of zombies

[stoic moth]

Updated to version 2!

Increased M14 base damage from 2,2.5 to 2.5,3
Lowered MSR788 aim growth from 13 to 5
Increased Deagle and Magnum crit growth from 6 to 8
Lowered M9 crit growth from 12 to 10
Increased base M9 crit from 20 to 30
Reduced shotgun damage by 1/3rd, increased amount of pellets from 3 to 9 (same as vanilla)

[stoic moth]

Not every gun, but m14s and m16s are pretty rare, and aren't really worth using unitl you have 5-7 aiming.

Also, .308 ammo comes in only boxes of 20, and 5.56 ammo is pretty rare

so I want the M16 and M14 to feel very powerful when the player actually gets to use them

[gilded osprey]

You’re both right, after thinking about it for a bit, I’m very biased to how guns work in other games, but in the context of project zomboid I think this makes the most sense

[stoic moth]

The mod hit 100 subscribers today!

[gilded osprey]

Saw this on reddit (they’re filling it day by day now) and had to think of this mod

[gilded osprey]

(I meant in a positive way, since this mod fixes the issue of the bolt-action rifles being useless)

[stoic moth]

Yeah, I thought that too

[stoic moth]

considering nerfing the m9s crit growth a bit

it feels good at aiming 3, but by the time you hit aiming 5 nearly every shot is going to be a killshot up close due to critical headshots, and I don't want the M9 to be able to do that, since it's already the second most accurate pistol in the mod

[gilded osprey]

Sounds good

There also need to be some reason to level your aiming further :D

[stoic moth]

Woah!

I didn't check the stats for a while, and it's over 400 now!

[pallid mural]

Can I just remove the B41 gun damage mod and replace it with this one?

[stoic moth]

Yes, but you'll have to use debug to remove guns that are already spawned in, and spawn in new ones. The mod can only affect new items as they are created, not pre existing ones.

[pallid mural]

alright

thanks

[stoic moth]

V3 will be out shortly

Hunting Rifle: decreased base damage from 2.5,3.25 to 2.2,3
M9 Pistol: lowered crit growth from 10 to 6
Deagle: increased base aim from 20 to 30
Magnum: decreased base damage from 2.4,3 to 2.4,2.7

[spark robin]

Guns? In b42?

Nice to see someone is working on bringing guns back into the spotlight, I feel like indie stone obliterated them from their power in B41

[stoic moth]

Yeah, they really did. I made a short video going over my issues with them if you wanna check it out

https://youtu.be/ut1WiGx3e04?si=L6mp8WUDm_6Iu-8Q

[gilded osprey]

Thank you for your service o7

[gray cedar]

I'm gonna actually help feedback this version again. Honestly, just looking at the numbers I feel this has put the M9 in a perfect spot, but we'll see how it plays out

[gray cedar]

I had to go tend to some stuff before I could anything like proper testing, but with the initial stuff I did at Aiming lvs 0/3/5:

the Magnum still feels reallystrong at Aim 3. Maybe still too strong. Even with mid levels of panic active, you can click on heads and pretty reliably get 3.3-3.5dmg

[stoic moth]

gotcha

I think you're right, the aim growth and base aim right now is too high- you're looking at like 66% at aiming 3 without any aiming bonuses, and can easily get another 30 from close range

[gilded osprey]

Are you satisfied with the values now or will the Magnum need a nerf?

I can finally start my playthrough

[stoic moth]

I'm torn, because it's definitely too strong currently, but also, .44 ammo is rare and only comes in boxes of 20, so does it really need a nerf, or should I just let it be fun?

[gilded osprey]

I think it’s justified to have Magnum (and Deagle) be super strong pistols

But I think it would be fair if Magnum/Deagle would need a bit higher aiming level than other weaker pistols to have the same hitchance

(Not sure if this isn’t already the case with the mod)

[stoic moth]

In theroy that's how it works, but the aim growth is so high with the magnum that it ends up having decent accuracy even at only level 3

I'm gonna do a small nerf and call it good I think

v4
Decreased Deagle base aim from 30 to 25, and aim growth from 12 to 10
Decreased Magnum aim growth from 12 to 10

[stoic moth]

I think I might be insane but it seems like PZ is using three seperate systems for decreasing aim over range

here

which is applied directly to the aim penalty

gotta love this boolean being made and then promptly ignored by a function that does the same thing

Why the hell do some of these functions exist???

like this one

why is the aim delay aim penalty being affected by distance?

[stoic moth]

it also does it here

[gilded osprey]

I can tell you, it is not your ability to read code, it is really the pz code base

So you are probably very sane, and the codebase is insane

[gray cedar]

(Narrator: "but she was indeed, insane")

[gray cedar]

I finished playing around with the MSR788, Deagle, Magnum, and M9 this morning, with the newest vers of the mod, kinda just picking up where I left off, and messing around a bunch at Aim lvs 6, 8, and 10.

Uhhhm, I think no further notes from me!
Everything feels like it's in kind of a great spot, in my subjective opinion

[stoic moth]

lol

[stoic moth]

Wait

did they remove the ability for shotguns to headshot in 42.12.3

I think they did

[stoic moth]

I think they need to be buffed now because of that, but I'm not sure by how much, or what I should buff

[carmine estuary]

Their damage, straight up

[vernal flint]

Shotguns can indeed still hit the head and, like all other ranged weapons, benefit from the same body part multiplier of x3.

[stoic moth]

How odd, I wonder why they're not on my end

I must have messed something up

[gilded osprey]

This is still a great (and needed) mod

[stoic moth]

out out a new version, should help with the shotgun issues some people were reporting

don't know why this would change anything, logically it shouldn't, but in testing it went from shotguns not killing on headshot to doing so

[gilded osprey]

case sensitive bug? would be my first guess

[stoic moth]

. . .

You've gotta be kidding me

Well that explains why setting the ProjectileCount from 9 to 9 increases the damage lol

[gray cedar]

fr, I finally got a SP 42.13 character far enough into the midgame that I actually started using guns, after playing a bunch of multiplayer lately without this mod installed

I was all "whoah, why are the handguns actually doing any damage at Aiming 0-1? Shouldn't it be like 1 kill per magazine" before I remembered I had this 😅

[gilded osprey]

Did it multiply the damage by nine? The default for ProjectileCount is 1

[stoic moth]

yep!

Which is why shotguns have such low base damage in the mod

They'll one shot on headshot, but not on bodyshot (unless you crit)

[gilded osprey]

@cursive orchid maybe check this out, the c could be erroneously wrongly lower-case here (in the new vanilla generated .json .txt files)

[cursive orchid]

I appreciate you flagging this! I’ll check this out shortly

[gilded osprey]

In theory the code does equalsIgnoreCase, so I don’t have my hopes up but I can’t see anything else that could go wrong

[cursive orchid]

At a glance, looks like it does ignore case -- from cursory tests, the damage from a shotgun blast deals the same vanilla damage when the property string is properly capitalized or not, though I'm happy to put it forward if it's a PITA for modders for whatever reason

[stoic moth]

Maybe I got things wrong in my own testing then- I've been busy so didn't test things as thoroughly as I should have

But I swear I was getting different results with setting it to 9 manually in the mod vs not editing it

[stoic moth]

[gilded osprey]

[gilded osprey]

I guess your mod works yet again without changes due to the good surgical coding?

[stoic moth]

almost certainly lmao, I'm doing testing right now

yep, works with zero changes yet again

https://klipy.com/gifs/seiun-sky

[gilded osprey]

new update dropped, new guns

[stoic moth]

Yep!

Chance to damage is still 100% accurate though