Then there's the fact that guns really don't suck. There's a reason why guns gained dominance over bows- it's because the penetrate armor much better. Muskets could be diamond armor-killers.
Actually, guns gained dominance over bows because it's much easier to find some random schmuck on the street, give him a musket, and drill him for a few weeks, rather than train an archer for years and years
Historically green shrubs don't look at you menacingly and explode. Suggesting that you add a weapon that requires you to keep loaded copies in your inventory to be used effectively is stupid, all you'd be doing is adding more stuff to the already cluttered sphere of random stuff people seem to think the game needs.
"Guns have to function like x y and z otherwise it wouldn't make sense"
"This is a game about green exploding snake monsters we don't have to follow real life"
Make up your mind you goddamn hypocrite
I've read a few things on the Minceraft Forums, of which I will tell you two that I find interesting, one concerning the whole "carry a stuff-ton a' muskets" strategy, the other concerning ranged weapons at close range, and both by the same guy.
The suggestion I often propose to prevent "machinegunning" (also known as the "Derringer Meryl" principle, if you watch Trigun) is to have guns only remain loaded while they are the active item in your hotbar, the same way bows don't remain drawn when deselected. For this to work, loading a gun has to use the same principles as drawing a bow, though I see it as working in stages.
Unloaded - The weapon's default state.
Loading - You must hold down right-mouse until the animation finishes, like eating.
Primed - Once the Loading animation is finished and you no longer need to hold the button. The weapon will fire and return to the Unloaded state, consuming one ammo, the next time you press the right mouse button. So long as the weapon remains your active tool, it remains Primed, but it automatically becomes Unloaded without firing if you switch to something else first.
This prevents setting up a chain of guns to use one after the other, allows a delay to be put on loading that cannot be circumvented, and is consistent to early firearms, which could not be kept loaded when not in use, as the nature of the rounds meant that they would fall out or become unpacked (and thus too loose to propell the shot) while being carried around.
souceThere is an aspect in which all ranged weapons need a drawback, which they currently do not have. At present, there is little reason not to use a bow at close range, and the only thing that would keep a firearm from being overpowered for the same reason, a longer cooldown (in the form of reloading), gives the bow an overall advantage. However, both to encourage a mix of ranged and close combat, and to give the gun a distinct benefit, I think all ranged weapons should suffer from interruption.
Specifically what this means is that, when drawing back a bow or loading a firearm (or spinning a sling, or what-have-you) taking damage (or perhaps only knockback) would have at least a chance of causing you to loose the shot, representing fumbling the weapon. That would give players a reason not to rely on ranged weapons at close range, since an opponent could prevent them from attacking simply by keeping the pressure on. Where firearms would get an advantage is that they can be loaded in advance, whereas a bow has to be held. Thus the bow is susceptible to interruption at all times, while a gun can only be interrupted for a few seconds between shots. Where does this tie into guerilla warfare? A skilled musketeer could take advantage of the fact to disrupt his bow-wielding opponent before they can shoot, while they could not do the same to him. Yes, a player could learn to compensate, and to take advantage of the bow's shorter draw time, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It simply means that the gun would not be overpowered in comparison to the bow, simply removing several drawbacks that a skilled player can also manually adjust for, but might find it more convenient not to have to.
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