I don’t know if that’s the correct version since I’m away from the computer, yadda yadda
I fired up Zomboid after watching this movie but I thought I’d play around with the guns first instead of going straight into a new playthrough.
So with the debug console open, cheats active, and Base.Pistol in hand, I took some shots at some 'boids. And it’s incredible.
You know how in Counter-Strike, its a classic joke to say it’s the game where your bullets can come out of the gun and make a 90° turn? Zomboid seems to have taken notes.
You can’t seriously be saying that I can knock a zomboid to the ground, stand on top of them, aim my gun one foot from their head, fully intent on executing them; pulling the trigger and watch the debug console as it says I hit them somewhere ridiculous like the lower torso or the hands and arms.
Bullets don’t feel real in this version. It really is just gambling which body parts you’re “calculated” to have hit, instead of calculating your chances of hitting your designated target. The Aiming skill just feels like a modifier for your chance to hit, and your crosshair is just a designator for which entity to run the calculations against. The crosshair doesn’t feel like it’s guiding a bullet to a target anymore.
And the salt on the wound is that the animation system acknowledges my intent to headshot most of the time. There’s a slight disconnect between the physical model and the hitboxes (I suspect its because the hitboxes aren’t rotating properly with perspective, center-of-mass is always fine) but otherwise the animation system is a delight.
Man, what I’ve just written feels off. Either way let’s talk about these gun changes. They feel really bad right now.
I take the aspect of gun play as someone at zero skill shooting a gun - and with the consideration I have hit targets but seldom hit it where I want to which I think is fair for someone with no experience shooting at a moving target while panicking a bit and taking some time to aim.
One has to throw some disbelief in as Zomboid is attempting for that “realism” spectrum of game (granted there are a lot of areas that needs work, one needs to take that into consideration a little). Hunting animals is a little easier than killing the undead at least - so in that way, one can think (although not animated) that the swaying and erratic of a shambling corpse (so hitting arms, legs, etc is a character’s (that the player is playing with) skill issue and is harder for them to hit another “person” until they get skilled at shooting (developing proper form, knowing how much pressure on the trigger, getting over “killing” a human, etc).
Standing on top of them doesn’t necessarily mean they are not “moving” (again it is output to the player that could be better) so I imagine that hitting them in other body parts can be the equivalent of bullet being deflected as the target is flailing about (granted it isn’t animated - that could be a reasonable assumption if one allows themselves to consider the “realism”)
When one has gotten more levels then the aiming (I would say around aiming 5 is where is feels better) is more consistent and (especially when not panicking) one tends to hit where they target within reasonable range
The game isn’t perfect, but I try to think of things in a “realism” lens and try and work with what is there
If that is not your thing, that is fine - you can always customise a sandbox world and create a world that more suits your needs and once mods are brought up to build 42, then that can be further tweaked to personal preference