Weapon damage, are they ever going to improve it?

[ZomboWTF 527]

Huh? Apart from maybe makarov/m1911, what are you talking about? Most guns in the game kill anything within 3 body hits..?

wtf?

only AKM and harder hitting weapons kill with less than 4 shots

you can only kill a person with one magazine with the M9 or G17 or PDW in the handguns section, the m1911 needs 10 shots afaik, just like the revolver

all m4 and m16 variants need 4 shots, the AK74 variants and the m4sd variants need 5-6 shots to kill depeding on range

especially the .45 firing weapons had a huge nerf, you used to be able to kill people with two revolver shots, now it's 10 shots... wtf?

the weapon damage got adjusted by an arma patch and was totally dorked from that on, since it seems to be simulating the bullet damage when someone has a bullet-proof vest on and is a bad-ass soldier trained for gun combat and extreme pain mitigation

i guess everyone writing in this forums would drop from 1 makarov shot and not be able to move anymore out of sheer pain, depending on the section hit, including me

also guns are way to accurate for the people using it in the mod, an untrained dude firing an AS50 and landing a headshot from 800 meters away?

people firing and hitting targets from the hip at 100 meters? lol

[mitor 176]

True. If you think about it survivors are only that, survivors. Not soldiers.

[Easy_Tiger (DayZ) 33]

Im a little disappointed by the weapon damage.

I used to be a hardcore OFP player years ago where unless you were shot in the legs it was one hit one kill. Now weapon damage is like BF3....

[spankerfist 44]

Not entirely true. Some SMGs have insane rates of fire, as well as come with their own calibers 5.7x28mm but that might already be used by some pistols I'm not sure.

People should die if hit with a pellet shotty at close range for realism win. Slugs tear a hole in the human body at better ranges but become useless at long range because of accuracy issues. To me, shotguns are underpowered.

The Winchester 1866 could be loaded with the .50-110 Express rounds which are very powerful and can tear you a new one. On a side note Winchester is not a shotgun, it's a rifle. It even says it in the name and I always wondered who made it this way in Arma.

The 5.39 rounds are IMO very comparable to 5.56.

However the AKM uses 7.62 which are considerably more powerful, actually IMO they should do around 6000 damage. The difference between 7.62x39 (AKM) and 7.62(M14) is the AKM with have an effective range of around 250 meters.

M14 AIM is not a sniper rifle it's just an M14 with a red dot sight. No idea why it's a considered a sniper rifle

Lee Enfield aka "zombie magnet" uses 7.7x56mm which should do 8000 damage at the least. I just don't use it because it's suicidal.

When push come to shove though, loads of these issues are actually "features" created to balance the game.

You know why pumpguns/shotguns is illegal for military personel to use against enemies in combat in real life ?. They do uncessearry damage and wouldnt kill someone unless they are fired at very close range.

[Delta Smoke 01 765]

Mak, m1911, G17, m9 and mp5 should be raised from 800 damage per hit, to about 1500/2000 for a realistic effect. As for shotguns your not aiming right. I never fail to drop a guy forst shot with any shotgun, using any ammo type.

[tsandrey 379]

I absolutely agree. I have no idea why pistols and some weapons do so low damage. ffs BF3 has higher pistol damage, and Arma is supposed to be realistic

Edited February 11, 2013 by TSAndrey

[IvanDolvich 0]

I'm glad that someone pointed out this issue... Most weapons, especially handguns and SMGs are just underpowered. It's a really a joke that you need about 8-9 .45 (M1911) rounds to kill a player.

Pistols and submachine guns are generally useless, sometimes even when shooting zeds since it's hard to place a headshot to VVVVV zig-zag running zombie.

I'd love to use MP5 or SD6 also against players… and not to fire half of a mag to kill someone.

[belzibhaal 21]

FAL and M14 are both Battle Rifles, hence why they do so much damage. The Lee Enfield should go back to being a 1 hit kill, due to the .303 round it uses.

Also, if you guys are complaining about taking so many shots to kill stuff, stop being shit and aim for the face. Headshot is always an instant kill.

[ZomboWTF 527]

FAL and M14 are both Battle Rifles, hence why they do so much damage. The Lee Enfield should go back to being a 1 hit kill, due to the .303 round it uses.

Also, if you guys are complaining about taking so many shots to kill stuff, stop being shit and aim for the face. Headshot is always an instant kill.

the problem with that is the hit registration, i've had one time sniping with a CZ, hitting a player right between the eyes, i literally saw the blood coming out of his forehead, yet he just turned around like "na, bro, i'm leaving!", running away...

and pretty much every 7.62 and higher gun could be one-shot just as well, it knocks people out when hit in the chest anyway

the most terrible thing about the guns though is the power of the low-calibre rounds, like .45 (yeah, low calibre, lol) 9x18, 9x19 and the AK74 rounds are just so weak it's not even funny

i hope they at least sort it out for the standalone, especially the accuracy of the weapons, since we really don't play as soldiers, but as survivors

[TheBambiAvenger 146]

No, they don't. Even the assault rifles apart from the AKM need four (And the M4 CCO SD even more) body hits to kill. And pistols and MP5 need about 7-8.

The AKM does 4500 blood damage, and all guns that use stanag (M4, G36, etc.) do 3555 damage. This means that the AKM will knock someone out with 2 hits and kill with 3, and the M4 will knock out in around 2 hits and kill in 4. And in most cases a knocked out person is a dead person. If they increased weapon damage that would make the AKM a one hit KO, making it OP compared to sniper rifles (one hit KO but fast fire rate). If the AKM killed in 2 hits that would be incredibly overpowered, meaning you could take out players in literally one second. Although I do see where you're coming from with the submachine guns getting buffed, the fact that the mp5 (non silenced) takes around 13 bullets to kill is ridiculous even with its relatively fast fire rate. Meanwhile, some lmg's and sniper rifles are one hit KO's, making SMG's almost throwaway weapons. So yes, I think the SMG's should be buffed, and maybe the pistols, however the pistols only a little, keeping in mind they are sidearms, not primaries. Shotguns do fairly decent close range damage, so I think they are fine for now (while they are not commonly used, increasing the damage would probably make them OP, and everyone would use slugs). Just my opinion, feel free to revise it if you wish.

[Jonsse 69]

however the pistols only a little, keeping in mind they are sidearms, not primaries.

A gun is a gun. It's more realistic and gameplay improving when everyone with a gun is a threat. Pistols are sidearms in games like Battlefield and Call of Doody when your main weapon is an assault rifle and bullets don't matter, not in survival games.

----

Size matters with guns. Not just bullet size, but propellant quantity and barrel length also play a huge role. A 9mm Parabellum is almost twice the size and weight of a 5.56 Nato round. But it has less propellant and it's shot from a shorter barrel, so it has less stopping power. But that's only when they're behind weak cover or wearing a vest. If you're close and without any protection, the 9mm would be very devastating. The funniest thing in DayZ is that you can shoot a magazine of .45 rounds from an M1911 in to another player and they won't even faint.

So yes, Pistols are disgustingly underpowered and useless. And given the common nature of 9mm handguns in Chernarus, finding clips and bullets for them is equally disgusting.

I would much rather see a much more narrow spectrum of damage from the available weapons and then make larger weapons more difficult to move with in some way. Assault rifles have the advantage of clip size, accuracy, penetration and rate of fire opposed with increased size and weight. While handguns are light, fast to use and fast to aim opposed with lower penetration, lower clip size and lower effective range.

If those attributes could be implemented in some way, it would bring an interesting dynamic to choosing your weapons. Rather than going for the biggest gun out there, you would make informed decisions based on your intended use for the weapon.

Edited February 12, 2013 by Jonsse

[mitor 176]

The AKM does 4500 blood damage, and all guns that use stanag (M4, G36, etc.) do 3555 damage. This means that the AKM will knock someone out with 2 hits and kill with 3, and the M4 will knock out in around 2 hits and kill in 4. And in most cases a knocked out person is a dead person. If they increased weapon damage that would make the AKM a one hit KO, making it OP compared to sniper rifles (...)

False, false. Have you played Dayz recently? because 2 hits from an AKM doesn't knock you out, neither (lol!) two hits of an M4. You have to be lucky to knock someone with two shots from an AKM.

And then, the statement If they increased weapon damage that would make the AKM a one hit KO is ridiculous. 4500 blood damage...

12000-4500 damage means you hace a range of 7500 damage to increase from to 12000 and not to make it a one hit KO.

If we are going to talk about this lets consider facts:

-An M4 will not kill in three hits, and will leave you with 1400 blood, badly injured, and maybe unconscious.

-An AKM will not kill you in two hits and will not leave you unconscious in two hits because you will have 3000 blood. It will kill you in three hits.

-Handguns and MP5(And Bizon) will kill you in more than ten hits. Revolver and M1911 will do it in one or two less hits.

-While being shot, you are still able to perform all types of actions, such as run to cover, shoot your own weapon, turn around. So this creates an important difference between weapons which do high damage shooting automatically and weapons that do less damage.

Example: Using slugs in a close combat situation with a shotgun against an AKM, for example. It will be much more difficult for the one with the shotgun to win the battle, for obvious reasons, even if he hits the enemy twice before the enemy starts shooting.

Edited February 12, 2013 by Mitor

[ShokeR (DayZ) 29]

The problem is pistols deal almost no damage, when other "rare" guns deal too much.

[intensity 157]

First of all, pistols. No comment.

Pistols aren't used as a main primary to take down a hostile. They're used to suppress the enemy while the task of using your rifle/primary isn't applicable. I do think they need more damage in general though since they were nerf'd a little.

On another note, if different guns didn't have different damage (e.g; if everything is 1 shot kill), there wouldn't be any need to collect other guns other than a Makarov, unless you had a preferred gun.

[Sutinen 635]

12 gauge slugs should do a lot of more damage... That is one massive round compared to others and still does so little damage.

Pistols aren't used as a main primary to take down a hostile. They're used to suppress the enemy while the task of using your rifle/primary isn't applicable. I do think they need more damage in general though since they were nerf'd a little.

On another note, if different guns didn't have different damage (e.g; if everything is 1 shot kill), there wouldn't be any need to collect other guns other than a Makarov, unless you had a preferred gun.

We're not in the fucking military... You can murder anyone with anything. A handgun is good enough for me.

Edited February 12, 2013 by Sutinen

[intensity 157]

We're not in the fucking military... You can murder anyone with anything. A handgun is good enough for me.

But you're playing a mod for a military simulator. It would make sense if it's in the game and would be implemented instead of not using it.

[com1 10]

cant agree more

all weapons need to do more damage or player blood should be decreased to 8000

[TacticalN29 89]

I think they should try to make damage as realistic as possible based on caliber. Obviously a .45 has more stopping power than a 9mm. 9mm (9x19) and the Makarov (9x18) should be very similar. Obviously rifle rounds deal more damage than pistol rounds. I guarantee you in real life if someone isn't wearing body armor 9 times out of 10 a round from a 5.56 NATO would at least incapacitate if not kill its target. Most AK's use the 7.62x39 round which is quite bigger. They could try to make it that body shots and headshots are usually one shot kills, but leg shots would only break the leg. Basically take the damage of each caliber from real life and implement it into the game. This is after all a survival game based on a military simulation engine.

[bigdogsco 143]

Are we all getting damage and accuracy mixed up? A handgun can sure as hell kill in 1 shot, even just a body shot. But any further than 10m and you'd be lucky to hit what your aiming at. That's where dayz/arma is falling down.

[TacticalN29 89]

Are we all getting damage and accuracy mixed up? A handgun can sure as hell kill in 1 shot, even just a body shot. But any further than 10m and you'd be lucky to hit what your aiming at. That's where dayz/arma is falling down.

This is true. But considering most average civilians have never shot a firearm, much less had weapons training it's slightly irrelevant considering the character you play in Dayz is supposed to be (at least to my knowledge) an average civilian. However I have hit targets at 25 yards with no formal training and minimal experience with actually shooting firearms (this was a handgun and of course it was a stationary target). You could shoot someone with one shot from a .500S&W and not kill them. But you could also shoot someone with a .22lr and kill them in one shot. It's all about shot placement.

[bigdogsco 143]

The point I'm making is that any weapon can kill in 1 hit up close but you can't rely on a pistol to actually hit what your aiming at over a certain range. It can't be that hard to simulate that surely?

[CitizenIosef` 7]

I'm a bit late to this party, but here goes.

The 7.62x39 has a somewhat inferior wound channel compared to the 5.56x45mm/5.45x39mm with all else being equal. That being said, the light cover penetration(shooting through foliage) of the 7.62x39mm is superior to its younger bretheren. Hard cover penetration is also superior, but still not significantly high enough to count on.

Delivered energy may be higher, but that means exactly jack when compared to the fragmentation qualities of the lighter projectiles.

At the end of the day, the differences in wound channel are minor enough that I'd be able to accept 5.56x45mm, 5.45x39mm, and 7.62x39mm having roughly equivulent damage values. The lighter projectiles might do a bit more damage, and would almost certainly create higher bleeding values.

For the purposes of balance, I can see why the 7.62x39mm platform does more damage. A louder report with less accuracy needs some sort of balance against the more-common 5.45mm platform. I wouldn't personally have set the damage quite as high as it is, and I might even make the x39 create more bleeding, but there it is. Basically, I'm a long way off from saying that the 7.62x39 should do 4x damage as compared to the 5.56mm in any case. Finally, the x39mm has a trajectory resembling a freakin' rainbow, while the 5.56mm stays quite flat(to a certain point) in comparison.

I do disagree with the 5.45mm and 5.56mm having such different damage values. While there are 5.56mm loads that make larger wound channels than the 5.45mm, these are not in common use by the armed forces, and are likely only commonly available in the United States. As such, these damage and bleeding values should be more or less identical. Instead, there should be some nod towards the AR platform being inherently more accurate than the AK-74+ platform. As the user ergonomics are superior with AR pattern rifles, there is plenty of room for additional balance here while staying within the realm of plausible reality(reload times, etc).

Where this manner of damage determination REALLY starts getting sticky is when considering 7.62x51mm platforms. There is a huge array of commonly used and available loadings, ranging from fast-n-light "like a 5.56mm but better" type loadings, to heavy and slow "just hit it harder" type loadings. Each has fairly unique wound channels and advantages/disadvantages. In a way, homogenizing this variety of loadings into a single cartridge does the 7.62x51mm platform an injustice.

With my thoughts on bullet damage out of the way, there remains the issue of a hard-set number of bullets required to kill. In reality, .22LR has killed in one body shot. Entire teams of law enforcement officers have unloaded large quantities of the best quality loadings of .40SW into individuals who later appeared in court after a stay in the hospital.

It becomes quite difficult to apply these concepts to a video game, but I have wondered if a damage-range would sufficently bridge the gap between reality and game balance. Instead of a set value that is modified by hit location, it is instead a range of damage that is randomly chosen and then modified against hit location, or perhaps hit location modifies the 'floor' of the range. Example: A 9mm pistol may do between 400-4000 damage, with a much narrower range of bleeding chance. A 5.56mm may also have a range, but this may be a narrower range, say 3000-5000 to reflect the higher degree of stop probability with the intermediate round.

One argument against this is that nobody likes a dice roll for damage. I would like to counter this argument by stating that this mimics reality in a large way. There are so many variables to determine if a single bullet incapacitates that the shooter has zero effective control over, and DayZ should reflect that. To be clear: I dislike knowing exactly how many shots it will take to kill someone.

/end soapbox

[TacticalN29 89]

I'm a bit late to this party, but here goes.

The 7.62x39 has a somewhat inferior wound channel compared to the 5.56x45mm/5.45x39mm with all else being equal. That being said, the light cover penetration(shooting through foliage) of the 7.62x39mm is superior to its younger bretheren. Hard cover penetration is also superior, but still not significantly high enough to count on.

Delivered energy may be higher, but that means exactly jack when compared to the fragmentation qualities of the lighter projectiles.

At the end of the day, the differences in wound channel are minor enough that I'd be able to accept 5.56x45mm, 5.45x39mm, and 7.62x39mm having roughly equivulent damage values. The lighter projectiles might do a bit more damage, and would almost certainly create higher bleeding values.

For the purposes of balance, I can see why the 7.62x39mm platform does more damage. A louder report with less accuracy needs some sort of balance against the more-common 5.45mm platform. I wouldn't personally have set the damage quite as high as it is, and I might even make the x39 create more bleeding, but there it is. Basically, I'm a long way off from saying that the 7.62x39 should do 4x damage as compared to the 5.56mm in any case. Finally, the x39mm has a trajectory resembling a freakin' rainbow, while the 5.56mm stays quite flat(to a certain point) in comparison.

I do disagree with the 5.45mm and 5.56mm having such different damage values. While there are 5.56mm loads that make larger wound channels than the 5.45mm, these are not in common use by the armed forces, and are likely only commonly available in the United States. As such, these damage and bleeding values should be more or less identical. Instead, there should be some nod towards the AR platform being inherently more accurate than the AK-74+ platform. As the user ergonomics are superior with AR pattern rifles, there is plenty of room for additional balance here while staying within the realm of plausible reality(reload times, etc).

Where this manner of damage determination REALLY starts getting sticky is when considering 7.62x51mm platforms. There is a huge array of commonly used and available loadings, ranging from fast-n-light "like a 5.56mm but better" type loadings, to heavy and slow "just hit it harder" type loadings. Each has fairly unique wound channels and advantages/disadvantages. In a way, homogenizing this variety of loadings into a single cartridge does the 7.62x51mm platform an injustice.

With my thoughts on bullet damage out of the way, there remains the issue of a hard-set number of bullets required to kill. In reality, .22LR has killed in one body shot. Entire teams of law enforcement officers have unloaded large quantities of the best quality loadings of .40SW into individuals who later appeared in court after a stay in the hospital.

It becomes quite difficult to apply these concepts to a video game, but I have wondered if a damage-range would sufficently bridge the gap between reality and game balance. Instead of a set value that is modified by hit location, it is instead a range of damage that is randomly chosen and then modified against hit location, or perhaps hit location modifies the 'floor' of the range. Example: A 9mm pistol may do between 400-4000 damage, with a much narrower range of bleeding chance. A 5.56mm may also have a range, but this may be a narrower range, say 3000-5000 to reflect the higher degree of stop probability with the intermediate round.

One argument against this is that nobody likes a dice roll for damage. I would like to counter this argument by stating that this mimics reality in a large way. There are so many variables to determine if a single bullet incapacitates that the shooter has zero effective control over, and DayZ should reflect that. To be clear: I dislike knowing exactly how many shots it will take to kill someone.

/end soapbox

This. I had thought about saying something about different loads, but I thought it might be a little too complex to put in the game. But who knows.

[ZomboWTF 527]

again, the arma engine thinks the players are soldiers in bulletproof vests, in which case a 7.62 would make more damage than a 5.56 i guess, because of the penetration aspect

depending on the sort of body armor, it may even be that only 7.62 can penetrate and other round "just" knock you out, however:

this thread is primarily about the aspect of handgungs being completely useless in fights against players if the have a primary weapon

also the arma engine goes as far as to say a headshot is dead, bodyshot is damage, legs/arms equals broken limbs and less damage

from that point of view, they should dramatically increase the sidearm damage, bringing the 9x19 and .45 almost on par with the 5.56, since against soft targets a 9mm an be even more devastating than a 5.56, not penetrating the target, but having a superior wound channel

the .45 goes without saying it's underpowered, there is no gun with .45 rounds that can kill a person with one magazine in dayz, waitwhat?

[CitizenIosef` 7]

from that point of view, they should dramatically increase the sidearm damage, bringing the 9x19 and .45 almost on par with the 5.56, since against soft targets a 9mm an be even more devastating than a 5.56, not penetrating the target, but having a superior wound channel

I think we need to define the parameters in which a 9mm *can* be more devastating than a 5.56mm. The only loadings that I can see the 5.56mm performing worse than the best 9mm loadings at similar ranges would be non-fragmenting and way underloaded loadings. Needless to say, once a 5.56mm fragments(and by far most of the loadings are designed for fragment), you're looking at a wound channel that a 9mm could only dream of. From this point of view, the 9mm and .45ACP having the same damage values as the 5.56mm doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

the .45 goes without saying it's underpowered, there is no gun with .45 rounds that can kill a person with one magazine in dayz, waitwhat?

On the other hand, the 11.43mm(my bias is showing) doesn't quite live up to the years of "blow a man in half" hype that has been set out for it. Effective? Sure. Efficient? I'd disagree. Compared to the 5.56mm, the 9mm and the .45ACP are both, well, wussy. Both have killed in one shot before, surely, but that speaks more to shot placement and luck than stop probability of pistol-caliber cartridges.

I stand by my claim that the best way to get DayZ close to real-world data is with a damage range. 5.56mm should have a higher ceiling and floor in it's range, and the range should be narrower. 9mm or .45ACP should have high enough ceilings to make for devastating damage, but the floor should reflect the 'do pretty much nothing' hits.