Undead Helmets

[ripe dune]

There is absolutely no reason that firefighter helmets nor construction helmets resist firearms at all. They are plastic

Firefighter and construction helmets should require 2-4 swings from melee weapons to remove but bullets should just outright oneshot them.

Riot police helmets taking 4-6 mid sized rounds is ludicrous. Police riot gear is typically rated for .357 and under. any rifle rounds (especially .308) should just sail through riot gear helmets. anything .357 and under should maybe take 1-2 shots to knock off the helm of a riot cop.

[uncut rose]

While i agree in principle it's also a game and it's allowed to take some creative liberties. Personally I'd like construction zombies to only block melee, firefighter zombies to block pistol rounds and riot zombies to block up to 5.56 in order to give players zombies that they can't always instant kill without it feeling almost too gamey like it does now.

[tight pulsar]

There should be a bullet penetration stuff

It doesnt make sense that i shot a construction worker in the face pointblank with a shotgun only to see the helmet fall

Or at least hitboxes for the helmets

[magic canopy]

creative liberties are good, but not when it comes to disregarding one of the main selling points of nmrih (gritty, immersive, etc etc)

hitboxes for helmets would be great. restricting SOME anti-ballistic capabilities to military and police gear would make a lot more sense.

but, imo, some zombies having helmets that protect against melee impact is a really interesting way of encouraging gun use. it's a good way to introduce combat dynamics

and in the case of police and military, gun use of a higher caliber

[cerulean zephyr]

i really appreciate the current helmets for the gameplay value of encouraging legshots
even though the current helmets are really unimmersive, if they were nerfed meaningfully (like by getting a real hitbox), they'd be much less powerful at forcing alternative approaches

ig the response to that could be to increase spawnrates of helmets, but how many firefighters can you pull out of your ass before it gets ridiculous

[magic canopy]

leg shots are already encouraged in a way with shotguns. if you're a survivor with a limited carrying capacity, and you care more about the amount of bullets you can spray at heads rather than raw stopping power, then there's no reason to choose a shotgun over, say, a pistol with near twice the capacity and ammo that takes up a quarter of the space

but the fact that shotguns make it really easy to stagger zombies and rip their legs off provides a unique usecase

we'd see more reason to use shotguns if the body armor actually did anything, like transfer body damage to stability damage, (with stability damage scaling with caliber)

[cerulean zephyr]

current shotgun ammo is actually really similar to handgun/rifle ammo weights, it's in the ream+ patchlog

[outer siren]

set the map on fire and have a bajillion fire fighter trucks on 1 map specifically

[magic canopy]

yeah. they shouldn't have done that, imo

but the game is not nearly polished enough for it to matter that much, not with the bulletproof helmets and odd body-damage mechanics

[cerulean zephyr]

well, given that shotguns are clearly designed to wipe out multiple legs at a time, i don't feel that helmet changes are relevant to them at all
once players learn where to shoot, there's no reason to aim at anywhere else

a especially since a crawling screech/runner is often better than a dead screech/runner

[magic canopy]

helmet changes are relevant insofar as firearm combat goes. shotguns having multiple projectiles also means that shotguns would become a more powerful tool in general, as you wouldnt have to aim as carefully to land a hit on the head

once body armor on zombies start making more sense, shotguns become extremely useful in terms of killing individual, armored zombies quickly, and dispatching legs in a pinch

[cerulean zephyr]

sure, but why would you want to aim for the head? legging accomplishes the same thing killing them does, but more consistently, and with return on investment if you're sticking around the area

nerfing helmets makes shotguns better, if you don't know what you're doing or deliberately avoid legshots
if you do know what you're doing, shotgun gameplay remains the same

[magic canopy]

like i said, the game's combat isn't nearly as polished enough right now for it to matter. changes to helmets, body armor, and zombie spawning would open up a lot more avenues of approach depending on what the goal is

and yes, fixing helmets makes shotguns better. that is what i meant. sorry if i didnt convey that well enough

[magic canopy]

you're also describing a side effect of how zombies are placed in the world in general. if leaving a crawler opened up a spot for an able-bodied zombie to spawn, then you'd see a lot less people leaving lethal roadbumps everywhere

[outer siren]

geniunely tired of finding crawlers

[cerulean zephyr]

the more interesting dynamic is with non-shotgun firearms (since shotguns have little reason to not aim for legs)
spend a bullet to knock off the helmet, or spend 2 to remove the leg?
if helmets had hitboxes, you just shoot them in the uncovered face and move on

but at least that's still an aim based skillcheck

[pure fern]

not even lethal lol

[magic canopy]

exactly! if shamblers were dangerous, then there'd be pros and cons appropriate to what u do

want to shoot its head? okay, but you'll have to have good, quick aim.
want to shoot its leg? sure, you wont have to aim as well, but now there's a crawler that runs the risk of grappling you in a bad spot.
want to shoot its leg, then its head? go ahead! but now you've wasted more bullets and made more noise

[cerulean zephyr]

a more believable way to have rifle-resistant helmets would be to have rifles knock off military/riot helmets, but still inflict non-fatal damage on the skull, like how bloody zombies currently are
call it backface deformation, or partial penetration, or whatevs

a different audio cue for helmet damage would be nice too
the metallic pings aren't fitting for construction helmets or military armor utilizing kevlar/ceramics

i'm cool with firefighter helmets deflecting handguns, they have the O2 tank weakpoint after all

according to the spreadsheet it also seems like helmets are taking much more damage than they should

[outer siren]

april fools update where we replace the o2 tank with an actual bomb

[open quiver]

Not feasible for performance

[uncut rose]

I know it's not a fit for the setting but a good compromise between lore and gameplay would have the crawlers 'bleed out' and open a spawn slot for a new zombie (maybe the crawler loses too much energy or something idk how exactly you'd justify it considering the romero-ness, might just be one of those things we accept like body shot kills)

[open quiver]

Still preferable. Plus crawlers already despawn when players run away

[cerulean zephyr]

tbf bleedouts wouldn't be too big of a leap, we can kill zombies by bashing their kneecaps
seeing crawlers leaving behind trails of blood would be pretty slick too

[tight pulsar]

Or better yet

Having zombies cut in half

Crawling towards you with their intestines outside leaking blood

Like the zombies in RE2 Remake

Throw a pipe and if the zombie is in the right place

The blast wont kill him, but left him like that

Idk

[pliant hinge]

agreed. the helmets are TOO OP. Hard Hats would obviously mitigate blunt force, but it won't stop even a 9mm at all. Furthremore, they should make it that a player aiming at the face of the zombie should be able to stop the zombie, helmet or not, not make the helmet go flying. Gives an incentive to aim carefully.

[tight pulsar]

Its funny cuz you shoot into the zombie mouth

The helmet goes flying

And the zombie is untouched

[runic lintel]

Zombies with helmets are a MAJOR "feels bad" right now. Hardhat blocking even high caliber bolt action, and blocking face sucks👎

Possible fix:

• hitbox should not cover face (except riot gear)
• Hardhats should only block melee and small calibers like .22
• military and riot helmets can block more, but .308 should always penetrate and kill in a shot or two to the head.

Maybe these helmets would still be stronger than IRL, but they are being worn by zombies.

[cerulean zephyr]

i shot through a (presumably bugged) cop helmet on a crawler once
i have no evidence though because steam decided that it didn't wanna screenshot