The Fighting entry said one thing about a fight: you tap, you commit, and your character keeps hitting until it’s over or you move. That didn’t hold. It soon became one swing per tap, so every hit was its own choice. Around that, a weapon’s pace was hidden, a reload was free, and a gun hit the same at any distance.
Weapons take their time
Every weapon has a cooldown now, and you can see it. Swing a bat or fire a pistol and the action fills with colour and drains back to empty, with a countdown on it, and you can’t act again until it’s empty. For now most weapons fill at the same pace; what sets them apart is how hard they hit and how long they take to reload.
A reload used to be a click. Now it’s an action that takes a couple of seconds, and for those seconds the gun is busy: you can’t shoot, the menu says so, and a bar shows how long you have left. You can cancel it if something changes, and you get nothing for the time you spent. A magazine with three rounds in it is a decision you make on the quiet street, because on the loud one you won’t have the two seconds.
Guns get worse with distance
A gun has a range, drawn as a square around you on the map when you hold one. Inside that square a shot always lands, but it hits softer the further it has to travel: full power at arm’s length, a good deal less at the edge. Past the square you’re gambling. The odds fall off fast, and the menu tells you them before you tap, so a long shot is a choice you make with the number in front of you. Every shot then shows what it did on the map, a red number for a hit and a grey miss for a miss.
The first version had every shot able to miss, even close ones, and it did not last the evening. Paying the noise and the round for a deliberate shot at something two steps away and watching it whiff is a bad trade. So inside the range a shot never misses, it only weakens. Outside it, it can miss.
Auto, after all
The Fighting entry said your character never swings by reflex. There’s a difference between reflex and a decision you made once. This week added a toggle at the bottom of the screen, Single or Auto. On Single, a tap is one shot, the way it was. On Auto, a tap picks a target and your character keeps at it until the target drops, or leaves your reach, or the magazine runs dry, or you’re too tired, or you move. A Stop button sits on the screen the whole time you’re firing. The attack in the menu wears a badge, 1× or AUTO, so a tap never does more than you thought it would.
Auto is your decision, made once, with the noise and the cost in front of you, and it ends the moment you move or hit Stop. What it removes is the tap per swing, which on a phone with three of them coming was the thing that killed you.
A fight has a shape it didn’t have before. You check the magazine on the quiet street. You decide Single or Auto before anyone is close. You watch a zombie walk into the square, and the number on the menu climbs as it comes. You shoot, you wait for the bar, you shoot again, and every shot tells the block where you are. Then either it’s down or you’re moving, and moving ends everything.
Whether Auto turns the fight into watching a bar is the thing I can’t tell yet. On Single every shot is a choice. On Auto the choice is the first one and the rest is patience, standing still while something walks at you and trusting the gun.