I think throwing weapons is kinda flawed

[Trigon]

IRL I was taught to hunt small game with throwing knives as a kid. The effective kill range is basically laughable and I probably would have better luck throwing a rock. Tomahawks and hatchets are a different matter and weren’t available in my age bracket when I did competitions, but according to my mother they’re definitely something with a lot more killing power, not that anyone would actually hunt with them naturally.

But wielding them makes perfect sense to me. The only thing I ever held in my off hand while throwing was more knives. Given that you can wield a stack of them this is already modeled in game, but I don’t think anyone could reliably hit anything by throwing with their off hand or holding something that would effect their balance considerably. Honestly torso encumbrance should penalize throwing too based on my experience.

That being said you would still need to wield the weapon, as retrieving it from a backpack isn’t instant and really shouldn’t be. You can drop or stow what you were already holding, but throwing weapons with any force really is a full body action. Look at a baseball player throw a fastball and you’ll get an idea of the mechanics involved.

[Myst]

Noted, and true. Also the hunting argument makes sense. It’s just that it would seem very unlikely to me that in a world full of potential weaponry someone would go through the lengths of learning to accurately throw axes to kill things when swinging that axe yields the same results. But that was before I considered hunting where learning to throw actually makes sense since wildlife is usually much faster and quite skittish.

[Mantar]

Well it’s not exactly the same results if you can drop a zombie before it gets into range to start grabbing you and chewing on you. It’s a ranged option that allows you to kill a small number of selected targets before entering melee, but requires you to recover your (very!) expensive ammunition before leaving the field, which I think makes for some interesting tactical decisions.

Plus I don’t think it would be terribly hard to hit a target that’s slowly shuffling towards you. If those native warriors could kill each other with tomahawks in tribal warfare (and history tells us they could) then stupid, slow zombies shouldn’t be difficult.

[dissociativity]

A simple solution to this is to make a flag for weapons designed for throwing, therefore random junk is less accurate and does less damage.

We’d need to figure out a reasonable scale for weight and all though, like as someone said earlier, throwing knives can be effective, but have laughable range, where tomahawks due to their weight can fly through the air far more effectively.

Throwing should remain specialized and/or very improvised for solutions like smashing windows for distractions, or just softening targets a bit, but only viable as a /main/ combat skill with high quality, high cost weapons.

Perhaps solid blunt throwing items could stun, where sharp, heavy ones do real damage.
By no means should it be an ‘ideal’ weapon choice for an average player though, only one that is interested in dedicating time and effort into it, nor should it ever be as powerful as it once was.

[Mantar]

or should it ever be as powerful as it once was.

It was never very powerful beyond early levels, though. At high levels it loses effectveness versus the big nasty mobs.
What was OP has been nerfed appropriately, IMO, by reducing the ability of starting characters to build skill in a ludicrously short time, and by adding a wield requirement so it’s not like you can machine gun knives straight out of your backpack anymore. Try throwing in the latest experimentals sometime, it’s a much more reasonably effective strategy than it was before.

I am totally in favor of rebalancing things so knives and axes are superior thrown weapons to golf clubs like people were suggesting upthread, though. That’s just silly. Such a a change will probably fix the brokenness of throwing sticks as well.

[ootdega]

Because it is in the game doesn’t mean that it should be made to work.

…What? Are we Bethesda now?

But it would still be a terrible way to fight during the zombie apocalypse.

So would beating them to death with a slab of meat. I can still do that if I want. Didn’t you just say it didn’t need to work?

The point is the enemies that you wouldn’t want to get close to as a melee character are fragile, so throwing something at them would save ammo, and I could pick it back up. This isn’t a primary offensive tactic. It’s an option.

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

I kinda thought that was the whole point of the thread? The title doesn’t say anything about knives. The whole point is the damage model is completely inconsistent. You say it’s based on weight, but that’s clearly not the case. What does damage and what doesn’t is completely arbitrary. When I throw something, I have no idea if it’s going to hurt them or mildly tickle them.

Why are we arguing about “realism” semantics when it doesn’t even work the way you’re saying it should to begin with?

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.

Then why can I throw it further than my sniper rifle can reach? Now I’m tilted. You’re completely missing the point and I’m half-convinced it’s deliberate.

Not to mention I think I posted solid evidence otherwise, or at the very least a strong point of consideration.

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

This isn’t “adding new stupid features.” This is “getting the features that are already in it to actually work.” I’m not proposing a new feature, I just want what’s there to be consistent with everything else. Strawman.

You asked for a proposal and I offered one. Certainly didn’t expect it to get strawmanned and flippantly thrown back in my face, but it wasn’t supposed to be a definitive solution. It was part of the discussion.

If you want a new feature, then here’s one:

Allow a stack of throwing weapons to be kept in an appropriate sheath up to its capable volume. Mock me for proposing that “simple” idea too, if you want.

[kevin.granade]

The whole point is the damage model is completely inconsistent.

I didn’t say it wasn’t, and I asked for such a consistent damage model, but one has not been forthcoming.

Then why can I throw it further than my sniper rifle can reach?

How far should you be able to throw it?

I think I posted solid evidence otherwise

Evidence of what?

This isn’t “adding new stupid features.”

You responded to me asking which items deserved a damage increase with “Javelins, spears, hatchets, hunting/fighting knives there is an entire skill based on throwing…”. Excuse me if I don’t spend a lot of time rebutting… whatever you’re saying.

Also, I don’t know where you got, “new stupid features” from, you’re the only one who has said that.

[ecchi_squid]

This seems like a whole lotta arguing over how effective throwing weapons are.[quote=“ootdega, post:26, topic:18275”]
Repeat after me, “features in the game do not justify other features in the game”. It’s a circular argument.
[/quote]

Gotta admit I don’t agree with this the way it’s being used. Features of a game are supposed to balance out or show imbalances within the game, excluding new features of course. For example, if running still made you slower than most enemies in the game, you’d notice it’s not as functional as it should be. A logical choice would be to increase run speed vs. Nerfing enemy speeds or increasing walk speed.

[dissociativity]

One thing to remember is that throwing should be auxiliary, optional, not optimal, it wouldn’t be practical in real life, but being good at it could get you out of some shitty situations.
Benefits of throwing are: throw anything you have the strength for
Downside is: generally worse than other forms of combat
that’s fair, you sacrifice power for versatility.

[iezymihuke]

What makes throwing weapons deadly?

Their ability to hit a critical organ hard enough to cause the target to cease being an immediate threat OR to cause the target to bleed fast enough to cease being an immediate threat.

AFAIK a critical hit in CDDA is landing a hit on a target’s head, but unlike The Walking Dead’s “one and done stab to the head”, in CDDA it seems you have to damage a head enough to turn it into ground meat OR sever the head in order for the target to stop being a threat.
Another “AFAIK”, zombies do not have “critical organs” AND they won’t die as a result of bleeding out.

In CDDA there’s really no such thing as a skilled “one hit” that instantly kills anything, unless you have used something that’s overkill.
Pretty much by the time you are done beating a zombie for it to stop moving, it should already be “pulped”.

So throwing weapons shouldn’t be worthless against targets that have “critical organs” AND/OR can bleed, like other NPCs or something similar, but they should be mostly worthless against your average zombie (unless you turn it into a porcupine of thrown weapons).

[Myst]

…What? Are we Bethesda now?

I meant that the existence of a feature does not justify it being in the game. Granted, I’m convinced now that it should be, the hunting argument is very compelling. But your justification was nothing more than “it’s in there now, which is why it should be fixed”. That is not a very sound argument in and of itself, IMO.

The point is the enemies that you wouldn’t want to get close to as a melee character are fragile, so throwing something at them would save ammo, and I could pick it back up. This isn’t a primary offensive tactic. It’s an option.

Good point. And I get that throwing stuff as an option should be in the game. But I was just wondering if it is a mechanic that needs to be optimized to be a viable offensive option. I’m sure that even though it’s possible to wield a chunk of meat and bash zombies with it, nobody actually worked out the physics of using pieces of meat as a weapon as nobody in their right mind would rely on chunks of meat to reliably serve as a weapon. Same goes for throwing. Unless it’s a weapon specifically meant to be thrown, I would in real life situations not depend too much on a regular knife to do a lot of damage when thrown.

In any case, all things considered I concur with this:

A simple solution to this is to make a flag for weapons designed for throwing, therefore random junk is less accurate and does less damage.

[ecchi_squid]

Throwing (Calculations, strategy, etc)

So I’ve taken a liking to throwing based characters, namely because of how stupidly fast you gain skill in it. Can I hear a detailed explanation of how throwing range, damage, etc, is calculated? It seems the throwing skill got changed significantly from the original Cataclysm. How does damage and range scale with skill level? Also what is “Throwing Bonus” for the Dexterity stat? Is that applied to “To hit” or applied to damage directly like the strength melee bonus? All I’ve noticed is that…

From what I gather, using the railgun cbm doubles the effectiveness of the weapons bash damage and not its cut damage.

[NiwerSpkrin]

So why not to add two ways of throwing - one-handed and two-handed?
Do you think I can’t throw a stone with one hand? I can. But then, my stone or what is thrown inaccuretaly, without big force. It’ll not fly far away and probably will not do any damage. Thus one-handed throwing takes some (big) penalities to damage, range and accuracy.
There are items which do not benefit from two-handed throwing. They have a form and balance suited for one-handed throwing or too small to wield them with two hands, or both. They should take either no penalites or the smaller ones for one-handed throwing.
There are items which need accuracy more than any other stat. Think of acid-filled glass bottles. At close distances they could be one-handed thrown in such a way that they always break unless our char is really weak or the floor, which breaks our ammo, is particulary soft. Such mechanic and a few (2-3) bottles of acid could be used to kite zombie brute to death, making him step into artifical poodle of acid again and again.

[redxlaser15]

I’d probably be terrible at this whole thing in general IRL. I suck at throwing sooooo badly.

This conversation has also reminded me of a time where I heard that you could kill a creature in dwarf fortress by throwing underwear at it.
In Minecraft I’ve also killed several mobs with a feather.

Yay for video game logic. While there should generally be a sense of realism, you’re always going to run into some cases where things make absolutely no sense other than due to game balance.

[Mantar]

CDDA zombies don’t require headshots, actually. And in fact they’re less resilient than living people – just try beating down a regular Z versus an NPC. The NPC is much tougher.

Given their slow movement, lousy dodging, and the fact you only have to damage them enough to disable them to the point that the blob will start repairs, throwing stuff seems like a reasonable choice to me for anything short of a hulk/juggernaut.
And given the cinematic tone created by things like the kung fu or mad max deathmobile systems, the notion of being “throwing knife guy” seems to fit into this world just fine.

[Mantar]

I’m not sure what we’re talking about here with “one-handed” versus “two-handed.” Axes can be thrown with a two-handed overhead toss, but knives, rocks, and baseballs are better thrown with one hand.

If we’re talking about offhand encumbrance, then yeah, you shouldn’t be carrying a massive duffel bag full of stuff in your off hand, so 100 encumbrance is right out, but something like 15-20 encumbrance from a catcher’s mitt should not have any noticeable effect.

[kevin.granade]

So why not to add two ways of throwing - one-handed and two-handed?

Because this:

It’ll not fly far away and probably will not do any damage.

I’m not interested in spending development time and making the code more complicated for a feature that is completely useless.

[psyxypher]

When I think of throwing weapons, I’m really not concerned with throwing weapons with enough force to kill whatever I’m throwing at…but rather throwing something far enough and hoping it’s killed by whatever I’ve thrown at (read: Grenades). Throwing is the Pistols of Melee Skills; read, useless, and by design. The appeal shouldn’t be throwing knives, it should be throwing grenades.

That’s my thoughts on the matter. Now the issue is that you need to actually wield something to throw it, which caught me off guard a few times…

[NiwerSpkrin]

Hmm… Well, this topic is related to two-handed weapons, which afaik are “no-no” to add as they demand fundamental changes to all weapons (at least), which can’t be done as there are other tasks for developers to do. So one-handed throw is “no-no” too. I can understand it

Though I think fast weak close-range throwing can offer some tactical effects to the player and is not useless. Creating pool of acid from two glass bottles of acid is one example, the other can be blinding Zds with clothes (not with those on zombies though) for a turn. The third can be stunning Zds for a turn with a thrown rope through a lucky hit (it wraps around their legs). The forth can be oiling or watering the road or floor, making it very slippery (you’ll probably try keeping your balance as if you were moving in a rubble). The fifth is +20 STR CBM, which, I think, should make almost any (probably skilled) throw deadly, thus making quickness tempting choice. Etc, etc.
Well, 3 examples are not present in the game and probably will not be implemented. Only in a mod maybe. Yeah. But I’ve written those examples to show that it’s not that one-handed throwing is useless by itself, it’s useless because currently in the game throwing mostly does damage and does not provide (supporting) effects except few things like acid bombs, throwable fire extinguishers, molotov cocktails and (flash) grenades.

I’ve gone pretty to far from the topic of the thread and will not argue anymore there.

[TheZoneWizard]

I think the idea of allowing certain items to be given a tag to throw them with a good hand, while holding the item you are carrying in the off hand is a good idea. In terms of coding it was changed to do more work than we had. So how would it be more work adding a tag to a list of items and a debuff to throwing skill as we had until recently a problem? True. I wouldn’t be doing the work. I am on the other hand still curious, as we really did not have the swap/drop function until recently.

Kevin. Assuming that picture is you irl. I would be totally befuddled if you couldn’t throw a knife or a golf ball from your good hand at least 20 feet with reasonable strength, WHILE holding something in your off hand. Being gimped is perfectly acceptable. I would use a knife as a distraction to do a small amount of damage while loading a revolver a bullet or two. Strength and accuracy would be great and the skill gain would as well. It would all come together to make the character get better at the throwing. Using it as a tactic for distractions/last ditch(1 hand with debuffs) or as a primary(2 hands) for stalking. Hunting. Stealth. Each a validation for this topic.

Ordinance is a primary thing most would also use. Swapping and/or dropping my pistol when I can put my pistol in my off hand and use my good hand to take out the grenade. Pull the pin with the pistol hand(only takes 1 finger) and throw seems both reasonable and logical. Heck, I would like small weapons to have the tag to throw. But this would be a tactic not a full fledged ninja system.