Reloading is weird in this game. It's quirky and gamey, and IMO it shouldn't be this way, especially since it's such an important aspect of core gameplay. It feels inconsistent/unfinished/buggy. 2 "topics":
1 - Reload "canceling."
For those who aren't familiar, most (if not all?) guns' ammo "appears" in the numerical counter before the animation is finished. So it's really "ready to fire" before the animation is done, it's just that the fire button doesn't allow you to fire it before the animation is done. However, if you press "bash" really quickly right as the numbers appear in the counter, it DOES allow you to fire it before the animation is done, because immediately after pressing "bash" you can then press fire really quickly, thereby "firing the gun before the animation is done," shaving off a good .1+ seconds off the reload time. In a game where the approach to increasing difficulty is to just spawn more crawlers/stalkers behind you and move them to your back faster, this is a substantial advantage to playing on higher difficulties.
Now, I'm not sure if TW sees this as an "issue." So I'll address either viewpoint.
Viewpoint 1: "Reload canceling is fine/not an issue."
Proposed solution to quicktime event-like gameyness: Allow firing button to simply attempt to fire the weapon before the animation is finished. If you can allow bashing to "cancel" reloading, you can allow firing to "cancel" reloading as well? The improvement there is you don't have to press an extra button to bash before you fire. It just removes the extra press of the "bash" button. Obviously, if there are no ammo numbers, the gun won't fire and you'll have to start over, just as if you try to "reload cancel" too early as usual.
Viewpoint 2: "This is indeed broken/weird/not as it should be."
Proposed solution: Disallow cancellation of reloads by bashing, which will effectively disable reload cancellation.
2 - Reload animation with perk bonuses during zedtime entering/exiting or crouching (sharpshooter case).
Gunslinger and Survivalist have bonuses when they reload in zedtime. Sharpshooter has a bonus for crouched reloads. The weird/buggy thing is, zedtime or crouching isn't "dynamically considered" into the animations, so there are awkward situations at the "tresholds" of entering or leaving zedtime or crouching/standing up.
Issue 1: When beginning zedtime or crouching (ss), a reload which had begun before zedtime started or before crouch isn't "sped up" as it should be.
Issue 2: When leaving zedtime or standing up (ss), a reload which had begun before zedtime ended or before standing up isn't "slowed down" as it should be.
Both of these feel glitchy IMO, and they are particularly bad and obvious when there's a weapon with really long reload times (any gunslinger dual-wield really, freezethrower, M99 or something long-ish)... The funny thing is, it seems like the animation-repeat reloads for e.g. the centerfire are "separate" animations so they adjust more "dynamically" as they should, based on the fact that they seem to be "several very short animations" that play after each other and the effect is not pronounced and looks much more like the way it should be with other weapons.
With zedtime triggering immediately after a long reload had just started (e.g. gunslinger duals), sometimes, if it's early enough in the reload animation, it's actually beneficial to bash-cancel that reload, and start it over in zedtime so that it finishes faster rather than wait for it to end in zedtime.
Also, I'm sure everyone enjoys "gaming the system" by pressing reload right about when zedtime will end, so that the reload continues after zedtime in hyperspeed during realtime, but this is broken/cheaty/gamey in the same way that reload cancellation feels IMO. Possibly even worse.
Solution: Not sure about the technical difficulties, but can animations not be "dynamically sped up by a factor" so that in zedtime you can increase that factor or something? Or, and this is probably pretty ridiculous, but you can also artificially break up the long animation of e.g. freezethrower or dual-wield pistols into 20 smaller animations which play back-to-back with each other to basically achieve an approximation of what should happen...
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Both "topics" are not really game-breaking, and I'm sure everyone enjoys exploiting them on the positive side (trigger reload before zedtime exit, reload cancel to fire more frequently), but it makes the game feel buggy/beta IMO. I think they should be addressed. As a side benefit, they'll give some benefit to sharpshooter (can "cancel" animation inbetween bullet reloads), which is even thematic! (can't fire a gun that has its mag dropped out, but you can fire a push-load rifle), and will probably nerf the ridiculousness of gunslinger, survivalist to unload all the bullets in zedtime so you can press reload in the last second and exploit the glitch to hyperfast reload pistols in real time, which IMO has always felt wrong.
1 - Reload "canceling."
For those who aren't familiar, most (if not all?) guns' ammo "appears" in the numerical counter before the animation is finished. So it's really "ready to fire" before the animation is done, it's just that the fire button doesn't allow you to fire it before the animation is done. However, if you press "bash" really quickly right as the numbers appear in the counter, it DOES allow you to fire it before the animation is done, because immediately after pressing "bash" you can then press fire really quickly, thereby "firing the gun before the animation is done," shaving off a good .1+ seconds off the reload time. In a game where the approach to increasing difficulty is to just spawn more crawlers/stalkers behind you and move them to your back faster, this is a substantial advantage to playing on higher difficulties.
Now, I'm not sure if TW sees this as an "issue." So I'll address either viewpoint.
Viewpoint 1: "Reload canceling is fine/not an issue."
Proposed solution to quicktime event-like gameyness: Allow firing button to simply attempt to fire the weapon before the animation is finished. If you can allow bashing to "cancel" reloading, you can allow firing to "cancel" reloading as well? The improvement there is you don't have to press an extra button to bash before you fire. It just removes the extra press of the "bash" button. Obviously, if there are no ammo numbers, the gun won't fire and you'll have to start over, just as if you try to "reload cancel" too early as usual.
Viewpoint 2: "This is indeed broken/weird/not as it should be."
Proposed solution: Disallow cancellation of reloads by bashing, which will effectively disable reload cancellation.
2 - Reload animation with perk bonuses during zedtime entering/exiting or crouching (sharpshooter case).
Gunslinger and Survivalist have bonuses when they reload in zedtime. Sharpshooter has a bonus for crouched reloads. The weird/buggy thing is, zedtime or crouching isn't "dynamically considered" into the animations, so there are awkward situations at the "tresholds" of entering or leaving zedtime or crouching/standing up.
Issue 1: When beginning zedtime or crouching (ss), a reload which had begun before zedtime started or before crouch isn't "sped up" as it should be.
Issue 2: When leaving zedtime or standing up (ss), a reload which had begun before zedtime ended or before standing up isn't "slowed down" as it should be.
Both of these feel glitchy IMO, and they are particularly bad and obvious when there's a weapon with really long reload times (any gunslinger dual-wield really, freezethrower, M99 or something long-ish)... The funny thing is, it seems like the animation-repeat reloads for e.g. the centerfire are "separate" animations so they adjust more "dynamically" as they should, based on the fact that they seem to be "several very short animations" that play after each other and the effect is not pronounced and looks much more like the way it should be with other weapons.
With zedtime triggering immediately after a long reload had just started (e.g. gunslinger duals), sometimes, if it's early enough in the reload animation, it's actually beneficial to bash-cancel that reload, and start it over in zedtime so that it finishes faster rather than wait for it to end in zedtime.
Also, I'm sure everyone enjoys "gaming the system" by pressing reload right about when zedtime will end, so that the reload continues after zedtime in hyperspeed during realtime, but this is broken/cheaty/gamey in the same way that reload cancellation feels IMO. Possibly even worse.
Solution: Not sure about the technical difficulties, but can animations not be "dynamically sped up by a factor" so that in zedtime you can increase that factor or something? Or, and this is probably pretty ridiculous, but you can also artificially break up the long animation of e.g. freezethrower or dual-wield pistols into 20 smaller animations which play back-to-back with each other to basically achieve an approximation of what should happen...
----------------
Both "topics" are not really game-breaking, and I'm sure everyone enjoys exploiting them on the positive side (trigger reload before zedtime exit, reload cancel to fire more frequently), but it makes the game feel buggy/beta IMO. I think they should be addressed. As a side benefit, they'll give some benefit to sharpshooter (can "cancel" animation inbetween bullet reloads), which is even thematic! (can't fire a gun that has its mag dropped out, but you can fire a push-load rifle), and will probably nerf the ridiculousness of gunslinger, survivalist to unload all the bullets in zedtime so you can press reload in the last second and exploit the glitch to hyperfast reload pistols in real time, which IMO has always felt wrong.
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