Greatbow balance

[darktoes]

That’s open to debate, really, depending what you are balancing your game around. If balancing around game-play, then having weapons types that are effectively moot is not a good thing.

They’re not effectively moot. Spears require no archery skill or ammunition to use and are largely more versatile.

[Trigon]

I’m pretty sure I’ve read that Kevin has said that realism is a good benchmark to balance cata by. I don’t think the issues Tamior has expressed are the fault of Darktoes. I appreciate that Darktoes has added interesting muscle weapons for super strong characters.

I think based on what strength is supposed to represent I’m of the opinion that starting with 18 Strength is the issue. That’s beyond Mr. Universe level. You’re essentially a man shaped bear at that point. You are more than twice as strong as the average human being. That’s straight bonkers.

[Erk]

You’re choosing to play without traits, with minimal skills, and with a huge debuff at the start of the game, in order to train up other skills slowly to try to replace the debuff you took. You’re limiting yourself to four or five professions or being totally gimped at night. Dodge is generally considered one of the most OP things in the game, and you’re gimping that too. These things are all fine, but you’re hand waving away every single drawback and then asking why there are no drawbacks.

Things dexterity does: http://dev.narc.ro/cataclysm/doxygen/Effects_Stat_Dexterity.html

Things perception does: http://dev.narc.ro/cataclysm/doxygen/Effects_Stat_Perception.html

[Tamior]

I’m pretty sure I’ve read that Kevin has said that realism is a good benchmark to balance cata by. I don’t think the issues Tamior has expressed are the fault of Darktoes. I appreciate that Darktoes has added interesting muscle weapons for super strong characters.

I think based on what strength is supposed to represent I’m of the opinion that starting with 18 Strength is the issue. That’s beyond Mr. Universe level. You’re essentially a man shaped bear at that point. You are more than twice as strong as the average human being. That’s straight bonkers.

Ok, so how do you suggest we fix that?
Also, “being twice as strong as average” is completely … normal? Very likely there are people in some gym in my city that can lift twice as much as I can, me being pretty average.

[darktoes]

It’s real simple, limit starting stats to 14, since the design doc lists that as the absolute limit for a normal human. Either the design doc is wrong and needs to be rewritten, or strength is broken as a stat (it is), or starting with any stat as high as 18 is ridiculous (it is). Only one of those things is super easy to fix.

[Tamior]

I’m not “hand waving” them away, I legit don’t see how they qualify as serious drawbacks if they can be compensated for within the first several days by some training.
Also, “no traits”? Min/maxing stats has no effect on traits whatsoever… Same for starting skills.

P. S. Also, the difference between per 8 and per 4 is ONE tiles of sight radius at night. Is that one tile somehow completely gimping a character…?

[kevin.granade]

So the outlier is “a bow that you have to have str 18 to use”, and your response is that the rest of the game has to change to make your bow fit.

No, the bow is the problem. I in no way agree that the damage level you’ve picked for this item is in any way realistic.

The entirety of that argument serms to be that you’ve assumed the damage level for some other bow is correct, guessed at a draw weight for it, and picked a draw weight for the greatbow that after extrapolation gives the current damage level.

That last step seems to hold up, but none of the others do.

[darktoes]

The game should be able to handle a powerful bow that has a large strength requirement. That’s how it works in real life, more energy in, more energy out. As I’ve mentioned, it, in fact, scales with strength LESS than melee weapons do (as far as I can tell) so there’s actually no grounds for that to be an issue.

I haven’t assumed anything based on ingame values, I’ve been using realworld kinetic energy values and applied it to Poragon’s ranged weapon damage equation.

The only real issue here is that a player can start out with an excessive strength stat with no practical downsides. The bow isn’t the problem, it’s just revealed an overarching issue. Unless the design doc is wrong and 8 strength isn’t a baseline human, 14 strength isn’t a top-end standard human, in which case all mutations and bionics are out of whack and should give far more strength than they do.

[Tamior]

It’s real simple, limit starting stats to 14, since the design doc lists that as the absolute limit for a normal human. Either the design doc is wrong and needs to be rewritten, or strength is broken as a stat (it is), or starting with any stat as high as 18 is ridiculous (it is). Only one of those things is super easy to fix.

So submit a PR that would actually make 14 the limit for normal character and only then introduce weapons that operate under the presumption 14 is the limit…?

[darktoes]

So submit a PR that would actually make 14 the limit for normal character and only then introduce weapons that operate under the presumption 14 is the limit…?

Why don’t you? I don’t have any issue with it as it stands.

[Tamior]

So submit a PR that would actually make 14 the limit for normal character and only then introduce weapons that operate under the presumption 14 is the limit…?

Why don’t you? I don’t have any issue with it as it stands.

Because I don’t think that stat values above 14 should be flat out prohibited for normal characters at the start.
They already cost 2 points per point to increase over 14, making 14 softcap, but not hardcap. Hardcap is 20.

[darktoes]

So you’re paying what, 14 points? Just so you can use a bow? You could have started with strength at 14 and all others at 8, you could have started with a skill at level 8, even started with 4 skills at level 4. Any skill, with all recipes unlocked.

Everyone knows the real damage comes from unarmed builds anyway. This is not the gamiest possible build by a long shot.

[Trigon]

There is a delicate balance to strike here. If the effectiveness of the greatbow is reduced it quickly becomes not worth using. I am inclined to agree the fabrication requirement should be more than 4 though. Even if the materials themselves are easy to find I think it would take a highly skilled individual to build a bow capable of handling the strains imparted by drawing and firing this monster. Because high strength and high fabrication is a higher benchmark to reach, pushing it further into the high end weapon ranges.

[darktoes]

I don’t disagree on that. There will also be a significantly more complex recipe, so it isn’t something you can toss together in the woods with some sticks and string.

[plazma_rush]

Bows, Crossbows and Their Balance

If balancing around game-play, then having weapons types that are effectively moot is not a good thing.

I feel that balancing weapons under the assumption that “if you use a certain type of weapon, you’ll stick to that type exclusively” is a bad idea.
There’s nothing stopping you from using multiple weapons other than purposefully making a character with very min-maxed stats.

Archery and melee serve different niches.
Archery is safer, but requires time to prep arrows.
Melee is riskier, but requires no ammo.

Melee wouldn’t be moot. It would just be another option. You sacrifice some safety for some extra convenience.

As for builds, sacrificing 14 points just to use a powerful weapon with easily obtainable ammo from the get-go isn’t that balance-breaking when you can spend 8 points and start with a monomolecular blade without taking any negative traits.
The 14 points doesn’t even include the skills you need to be able to craft it from the start, you’ll need spend even more points for that.
18 strength will still allow you to slaughter zombies with melee early-game fairly easily, as well. This isn’t really a greatbow-specific issue.

[Tamior]

Ok, so if this greatbow is not out of line, what other ranged weapon with auto-learn recipe and quick-to-craft reusable ammo deals anywhere near 35 base damage?

As for builds, sacrificing 14 points just to use a powerful weapon with easily obtainable ammo from the get-go isn’t that balance-breaking when you can spend 8 points and start with a monomolecular blade without taking any negative traits.

Monomolecular is not safe to use vs shockers/acids/smokes/etc.
Bow is safe vs almost everything.

[pikolinian]

Perhaps Great Bow should have “Destroys Ammo” trait (you cannot pick up arrow after shot), or very long aiming time?

[Tamior]

“Destroys Ammo” is a good start, but 35 base damage on a bow is still unreasonable. Composite crossbow has 20. I can see oversized bow having the same damage, but going above that is re-e-eally questionable.

[Erk]

With 18 strength and a quarterstaff, you can hit regular zombies hard enough to explode them. I think you’re forgetting that base damage for melee weapons is modified by strength, but this is not the case for ranged weapons. A greatbow doing 35 damage is slightly more than a 9mm pistol that I can loot off a zombie on day one without building my entire character around it, and significantly less than a pipe rifle I can build with similar crafting skills, again using commonly loot able ammunition.

I still don’t understand why you think dumping dex and perc isn’t a flaw. There are a host of things your character gets worse at, and I have no idea how you figure you can get enough skills to compensate by the third day.

[Mantar]

A greatbow doing 35 damage is slightly more than a 9mm pistol that I can loot off a zombie on day one

Just tested, the greatbow does ~80 damage using cheap wooden arrows, a Glock 9mm does ~40-50 with common 9mm JHP against a regular zombie, or almost double the damage.
Against a hulk, the situation is even more dire, with the greatbow still doing ~76-80, while the 9mm gun is doing ~25-30 damage. The faster rate of fire helps a little, but neither is able to drop the hulk before it can cover the 12 tile testing distance and take a swing at the player, at least not using basic ammo.

Using carbon fiber arrows, the greatbow jumps to ~100 damage against a regular zombie, and same against a hulk, dropping it in ~10 tiles. The +P+ ammo deals roughly 50-60 damage to the regular Z, and ~40-50 to the hulk, and a 15-round magazine just barely dropped it before needing a reload.