I think throwing weapons is kinda flawed

Game Talk The Garage
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The character I’m currently using always carries a hunting knife. I picked up the Railgun CBM and figured that would turn it into a very viable ranged weapon.

I turned it on and threw the knife at a Huge Boomer.

“Headshot! You hit the huge boomer for 5 damage.”

You what.

“It takes you a long time to wield your entrenching tool.”
"Headshot! You hit the huge boomer for 30 damage."

Excuse me??

In what world does a folding trowel do six times the damage of a freaking bowie knife??

And fifteen times the damage of a cleaver??

Even if you don’t hit them with the edge, the cleaver is heavier than the shovel!

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In a world where knives aren’t handled specially and throwing damage is dominated by weight.

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Couldn’t resist.

But still, the cleaver did 2 damage and it’s significantly heavier than the entrenching tool. Throwing splintered wood does more damage than that.

This is so confusing.

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I was surprised to kill a few mobs with randomly thrown objects as well. Any plans to make this a little less random feeling whereby random junk does more damage than weapons?

I heard about this one guy able to kill a dude with a pencil this one time… :wink:

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Actually, time to bring this up, but why do we need to wield things before we throw them now? That really defeats any possible utility that throwing weapons have.

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Well normally I would agree with you on this. Except for the logic of it. The only way I can agree with this is if an object can be held with the off hand while the toon throws what they intend to throw with their “good” arm.

If I have a rifle or a pistol. It makees NO sense whatsoever to make me put it away or drop it, in order to throw any object that doesn’t require 2 hands to do so. Ala, a hand grenade. Pull pin with teeth or finger from the off hand.

This really makes throwing not just gimped. But unbalanced. If I’m chillin with a bazooka or something. Sure. No problem. It weighs a lot and is unwieldy. But your sword, pistol, rifle etc. Duffel bag and whatever else. All those items can be held with 1 hand while the toon makes a throw.

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Nope, got any sources tgat would indicate how much damage various objects should do?

Because throwing a weapon with the intent to kill something isn’t a casual flick of the wrist. Its a whole body action and you need both arms free to do it.

That’s a reasonable outcome, throwing weapons are terrible.

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Am I to infer by your response that throwing with both hand is a balance thing over a realism thing?

Because I am not that great at throwing and I could definitely throw while holding something in my off hand while wearing a backpack full of items.

If it is a balance thing. How about a scale to the throwing skill and the direction of the intended target to be not as accurate? Not only would it settle the logic of this topic. It would also make the player reconsider doing a throw of this manner based on how badly it could go, compared to the level of the threat attempting to avoid.

topic of junk thrown:
A a valid point. But I quation why that guys cleaver wasn’t as damaging as a trowel. I own a good trowel for camping. It could certainly do harm. But more than a cleaver? I dunno man. I think a few items like a cleaver should be added to a list of “crap that when thrown, does X more damage than the average item”. Like. a minimum damage amount based on the throwing skill level maybe?

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Quite the opposite.

How HARD could you throw it? That’s like saying, “I don’t know what the big deal with these two-handed swords is, I can pick one up and swing it”. It’s not just a matter of throwing at all, but doing so with great force and accuracy.

Not interested. As is being pointed out here, throwing at full force is already marginal in effectiveness, what’s the point of throwing at further reduced effectiveness? As I understand it, throwing while your off hand is encumbered would be a pointless activity, so I don’t feel like spending time on enabling it.

Which ones, how much damage, and what’s the justification?

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How about:

Weight and volume the toon has = move the trajectory of the throw.

Skill and strength = scaled to throw well and how many tiles accurately based on thrown item weight.

–
Items list…I’ll get back to you. Not a huge list perhaps. But I want to think about it a little more.

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In real life, you can’t pull a grenade’s pin with your teeth, the thing you are gonna pull out is 1 of your teeth, not the pin.
This is my grandfather’s experience when he was serving the army during the Vetnam war

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Since I don’t actually know for certain. I will go along with this, for purpose of the inferred risk of pulling a pin by accident.

But while I hold the other object. I can use a finger to pull the pin.

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This guy says he teaches beginners two-handed, but suggests you can throw one-handed once you’ve got it down. He also says it’s not about strength, but finesse, and most of the work is done by your core, not your arm or wrists.

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Some what true. I was just picturing myself throwing a rock in the woods the other day with a backpack on and it was raining. I was in an open field and the rock would be about the size of a golf ball but heavier than.

The torso does take some balance to not fall over. So I think Kevin has that part. But being ABLE to throw far and accurately with 1 hand while wearing gear is a very possible thing to do.

The objects that are arrow dynamic like a grenade or a throwing knife/axe should be given a tag to allow them to be thrown 1 handed while already holding something in the off hand. Why? Because you can. If you have 4+ throwing skill. You can throw such items at, say, level 1 and scale it like that.

I think if we had a lot of veterans talking. They’d tell you that people did this. Some cases not successfully. But that is reality for ya. It doesn’t have to be perfect for it to be capable in a dire situation. If you had something seconds away from killing you and this was your only option even though it were risky. I know many would take the risk. The difference is, we can’t risk it without the option to do so. :frowning:

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In case of the cataclysm, throwing weapons are the worst kind of weapon to use, unless you’re an Olympic champion javelineer or something. Knife and axe throwing are something for the circus but not a viable killing method. IRL I’d only throw things when in pure panic and I certainly would not throw my knives and axes since they have a lot more stopping power when wielded. Throwing IMO should be a very inaccurate way of trying to kill or stop zombies purely based on the mass of the object thrown, taking the strength of the thrower into account. With sufficient strength, shovels become more damaging than knives for the inexperienced thrower.

Now weapons aside, whenever I use the skill it’s mostly to throw grenades. An EMP grenade for instance to take out a turret. I’d throw them underhand if I had the choice and I doubt much throwing skill is necessary:

Shouldn’t the throwing skill be done away with since accurately throwing weapons is a very difficult skill and it would be very nonsensical to try this in case of the zombie apocalypse? And shouldn’t it be assumed that grenades and other explosives are thrown much more accurately (underhand) when wielded? From the same article:

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Be nice if it fired bullets like an actual rail gun.

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Ehhhh…

Javelins, spears, hatchets, hunting/fighting knives, anything that would probably hurt more and be thrown more effectively than the golf club that does 30 throwing damage.

And I think it would be a modifier, not a flat number, and variable, not universal.

The justifications would be there is an entire skill based on throwing that is really only relevant to how well you can pitch a grenade, and a CBM solely for throwing ferrous metal objects which, as demonstrated, is basically useless.

Pulling your big-ass knife out of a sheath and throwing it at something you don’t want to get close to would be a lot more fun and intuitive than digging around in your bag and guessing at what might actually hurt. If you combine the Railgun and Electromagnetic CBMs, you could have an entirely new playstyle. Or at the very least, a viable alternative to packing a gun and ammo just to deal with boomers and bloats.

I think the one-hand-encumbered thing is too specific and semantic to be worth dealing with. Dropping whatever is in that hand and picking it back up later is very easy to do. I do it all the time just to punch things better.

One thing that would have to be tweaked is range. I can currently throw my pistol five times as far as I can shoot it.

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How are the existence of these things reasons? Because it is in the game doesn’t mean that it should be made to work. You could also think about removal of such items or skills if they do not serve a logical purpose. It can be argued that going around chucking axes every which way is not something a survivor would do, even if they were a professional axethrower.

Of course’s there’s a ton of videos of people handling axes and throwing them in humps of meat. It’s fun entertainment. But it would still be a terrible way to fight during the zombie apocalypse. That axe is better served in a survivor’s hands, chopping zombie limbs off. Just because a professional athlete is capable of throwing a javelin 250 feet doesn’t mean that a professional athlete would employ this as a zombie killing method after the end of the world. It would be a terribly unreliable way to defend yourself.

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That’s your grip, I guarantee he doesn’t recommend that you hold random items in your off-hand while throwing. especially if you’re focusing on finesse.

That would be because he’s not training people to kill things, he’s training them to hit targets. It’s a sport, not survival. IRL if you’re trying to take down a person/animal/whatever with a throwing blade, the goal is to either get in a vital hit (mostly somewhere deep in the torso, but precision hits like blood vessels would certainly work), or a number of flesh wounds to make your target bleed out. It absolutely matters how hard the weapons hit in order to penetrate more and either make a larger wound or hit something vital. If you’re throwing a rock or other blunt object, the goal is to maximize the force to make a large bruise or maybe break a bone.

I would say that normally IRL you’re going for one hit to disable or kill a target, and that throwing weapons are quite bad at that, but I do think that throwing at quite close range in order to injure a target before finishing it off in melee is a viable and valid thing to do.

No, because as difficult as it is, it’s still a thing you can do to improve your chances of survival. In addition to moderate effectiveness in combat, you can hunt with throwing weapons when coupled with stalking, and that’s certainly something we would like to handle.

In the case of thrown ordinance, it is a lot more about range than accuracy, but even so, it’s very valuable to be able to throw a grenade exactly where you want it at a moderate range rather than placing it in a general area.

And these details are where your, “simple” request falls apart.
Javelins certainly, but spears are generally not made for throwing, they’re far too heavy and too large to throw.
Hatchets and knives are universally terrible at being thrown, the balance is intended for swinging, not spinning. You have to completely redesign the knife/spear in order to make it throwable.

Well that’s certainly a problem, but that’s a nerf the golf club needs, it doesn’t justify making knives better.

Repeat after me, “features in the game do not justify other features in the game”. It’s a circular argument.

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I don’t know, Myst. Native Americans regularly used tomahawks to kill people, it had a fearsome reputation during the colonial era. The gel figure’s left arm basically got hacked off by one in that video up there.
And those throwing knives look pretty lethal, too, and are compact enough you could carry a brace of them alongside your regular weapon, like in a bandolier or something.