Nighty
New member
Hai, so there was always lack of early game, by it mean that there's not much to choose and everyone just rushes for guns or iron tools, especialy now where guns are so common, they are considered trash by trader and players alike, selling for 30 dukes, scraping excess of them etc, getting a bunch of mid-top tier guns already on day 1 kill any progression in weaponry. If mid-top tier weapons drop rate would be drasticaly lowered and price increased to the point they are actualy desired and not another scrap worthy junk then there would be space for new early game content increasing replayability and lenght of playthros. Some of those ideas posted 1 and half year ago but this time will make better work at explaining them + add some extras that didn't make it into that old post.
1. Spear line. The first basic spear recipe would be just a bunch of wood, a rock and either plant fiber or duct tape (duct tape if want to restrict it from being made too early, fiber if want this weapon to be craftable together with wooden club)
Then there would be iron counterpart which would be just a long pipe with sharpened end, the recipe would be just a bunch of pipes inside a forge menu.
And the last one in line would be halberd. The recipe would be wood, forged steel and duct tape.
What spears would offer to the gameplay experience?, range, they would deal lowest damage of all weapon types and their attack speed would be slightly lower, their primary objective would be avoiding damage by outranging zombies, however, the biggest drawback would be, if a zomie or animal get past that safety point, spear can't hit that enemy making it useless so natural counters would be packs of dogs, bears, exploration/defense in tight spaces and ferals that player let past the safe point.
Spears would have their own perk like other meele types, the primary objective for spears is to keep enemies away so their perk would start off with higher stagger chance, on lvl 2 would show up slight bleeding damage chance to boost that low damage output, from 3rd point would start a very small chance to stun without knocking them down, so some kind of shock so zombie doesn't move. 4th and 5th levels would just increase all those 3 numbers.
2. Musket. It would belong to sniping weapons perk. The recipe would require stuff like blunderbuss just in different amounts. The ammo would be scrap iron + gunpowder, it would be logical to make those bullets in forge but can't smelt gunpowder into a forge and wanted to avoid wasting item IDs in engine, otherwise it could be making a bullet in forge, then mixing it manualy with gunpowder.
Musket would have lower firepower than hunting rifle and be rather inacurate, however much more acurate than a blunderbuss of course, just insteed of meele range like blunder it could hit stuff reliably at few meters away before having crosshair bigger than targets head.
3. Flintlock pistol. The same as musket and blunderbuss, except less resources to make but still the same, also it would use the same bullet recipe as musket bullets and would have similar mechanics as musket, except it would be for handguns and have less damage.
4. Nail grenade. Insteed of a pipe bomb, it woul require nails (obviously), wood (to make a shell), gunpowder to fill the shell and duct tape (to hold the shell together with only fuse sticking out), a primitive nail grenade!, tho perhaps the wooden shell part could be changed to like a bunch of paper since it would be easier for nails to leave the shell.
The nail grenade would obviously benefit from explosive perk, aswell it would have own effect which is causing bleeding and/or crippling. It would deal only 1 dmg to blocks hit with nails and a lil bit of damage in where grenade landed from explosion.
5. Crude sword. Yes, know this is not medieval, and that's why this is called "crude sword", it would be just a long pipe (like the iron spear) but insteed of sharpening just the end, it would be sharpened on entire 1 side. The recipe would be the same as iron spear.
What's the point?, well, heavy metal perk benefits literaly only 1 weapon, sledge hammer, sledge hammer is literaly by itself a different kind of playstyle, there is no diversity in playing heavy, this crude sword would fill that gap by adding second heavy weapon to the game except with different stats etc.
6. Scrap tools, players feel forced into going for forge bcs it gives so many adventages, so may recipes are behind forge, even basic tools. Why not make the "basic" line before the forge and iron tools, scrap tools which would be crude but would be surely better than some blunt rock attached to a stick.
1. Spear line. The first basic spear recipe would be just a bunch of wood, a rock and either plant fiber or duct tape (duct tape if want to restrict it from being made too early, fiber if want this weapon to be craftable together with wooden club)
Then there would be iron counterpart which would be just a long pipe with sharpened end, the recipe would be just a bunch of pipes inside a forge menu.
And the last one in line would be halberd. The recipe would be wood, forged steel and duct tape.
What spears would offer to the gameplay experience?, range, they would deal lowest damage of all weapon types and their attack speed would be slightly lower, their primary objective would be avoiding damage by outranging zombies, however, the biggest drawback would be, if a zomie or animal get past that safety point, spear can't hit that enemy making it useless so natural counters would be packs of dogs, bears, exploration/defense in tight spaces and ferals that player let past the safe point.
Spears would have their own perk like other meele types, the primary objective for spears is to keep enemies away so their perk would start off with higher stagger chance, on lvl 2 would show up slight bleeding damage chance to boost that low damage output, from 3rd point would start a very small chance to stun without knocking them down, so some kind of shock so zombie doesn't move. 4th and 5th levels would just increase all those 3 numbers.
2. Musket. It would belong to sniping weapons perk. The recipe would require stuff like blunderbuss just in different amounts. The ammo would be scrap iron + gunpowder, it would be logical to make those bullets in forge but can't smelt gunpowder into a forge and wanted to avoid wasting item IDs in engine, otherwise it could be making a bullet in forge, then mixing it manualy with gunpowder.
Musket would have lower firepower than hunting rifle and be rather inacurate, however much more acurate than a blunderbuss of course, just insteed of meele range like blunder it could hit stuff reliably at few meters away before having crosshair bigger than targets head.
3. Flintlock pistol. The same as musket and blunderbuss, except less resources to make but still the same, also it would use the same bullet recipe as musket bullets and would have similar mechanics as musket, except it would be for handguns and have less damage.
4. Nail grenade. Insteed of a pipe bomb, it woul require nails (obviously), wood (to make a shell), gunpowder to fill the shell and duct tape (to hold the shell together with only fuse sticking out), a primitive nail grenade!, tho perhaps the wooden shell part could be changed to like a bunch of paper since it would be easier for nails to leave the shell.
The nail grenade would obviously benefit from explosive perk, aswell it would have own effect which is causing bleeding and/or crippling. It would deal only 1 dmg to blocks hit with nails and a lil bit of damage in where grenade landed from explosion.
5. Crude sword. Yes, know this is not medieval, and that's why this is called "crude sword", it would be just a long pipe (like the iron spear) but insteed of sharpening just the end, it would be sharpened on entire 1 side. The recipe would be the same as iron spear.
What's the point?, well, heavy metal perk benefits literaly only 1 weapon, sledge hammer, sledge hammer is literaly by itself a different kind of playstyle, there is no diversity in playing heavy, this crude sword would fill that gap by adding second heavy weapon to the game except with different stats etc.
6. Scrap tools, players feel forced into going for forge bcs it gives so many adventages, so may recipes are behind forge, even basic tools. Why not make the "basic" line before the forge and iron tools, scrap tools which would be crude but would be surely better than some blunt rock attached to a stick.
