Throwing debate

Game Talk The Drawing Board
21

I believe that, from a gameplay perspective, throwing should be usable in some way from level 0, rise up to useful around 2~3, and slowly grow from there.

Now, the big problems of throwing were that:

  • the range of guns sucked, this has been fixed.
  • throwing did too much damage
  • throwing rose in level too fast

I’m not too sure on the status of the later two in the game as it is right now, mind you.

Anyways, back to what I was saying, as a way to balance the ‘too much damage’ with the ‘usable/useful’ part, would it be possible that for some throwing things, mainly improvised stuff, rocks and sticks, to reduce the damage and replace it with some stun or perhaps trip?

That way it starts as an usable strategic option, but not something you can kill zombies with until you have the stats, skill and equipment to use a more challenging throwing weapons (axes, knives, etc) effectively.

The downside would be that it’d be a bit tricky to balance it so you can’t stunlock a foe and poke it to death. Perhaps giving it a chance of failure, or reducing the stun time, or giving the foe an immunity to it for a few rounds after being stunned.

22

The object is stuck and applies severe encumbrance to the body part. Yes, please, daddy developers.

Already in:

    if( has_effect( effect_stunned ) ) {
        stumble();
        moves = 0;
        return;
    }
23

Err… I don’t think that code does that. It seems to be about resolving the stun effect, not apply the stun effect when hit by thrown weapons.

24

Both stun and stumble are in. Applying them to thrown projectile impacts is not in.

PS: That code snippet is from monster::move() in monmove.cpp. It’s stopping stunned monsters from moving, and causing them to stumble instead, when they take their movement turns while stunned is on them. So you just need to resolve when and where thrown weapons can apply stun. Rest is already in the builds.

Can’t look now, but I’m betting the stun effect is coming from shocks.

25

I know it’s in the game as an effect as well as tripping since martial arts techniques use both at the very least, that’s why I mentioned them as a possibility that could be added to throwing.

1 Like
26

In addition, perhaps improvised thrown objects would give a damage penalty, I.E a random stick would do subtract two damage from the damage values caused by strength and skill or whatever value needed for balance. You could just put all objects not designed to be thrown into this category to prevent random object spam and encourage players to make something that is actually a weapon. There might need to be some recipes like smooth rock or bola added for early game crafting, but that wouldn’t be too hard.

27

You guys are vastly underestimating the power of thrown objects.

A hammer falling from a fourth floor (say 15m) and landing on your head will most likely kill you. The hammer weights about 0.6 kgs and hits you at a relatively low speed of 17 m/s. Which is achievable with a throw.

See also this for the lethality of simple thrown objects:

2 Likes
28

Definitely. I once saw a kid of about ten at a pitching cage get the speed meter up to ~90 mph (to shouts of “sign him up!”) which is ~40 meters per second.

29

I would point back to my comment – just because you hit something with a rock doesn’t mean you kill it, especially if that thing is the size of a dog, child, or adult. I know it’s morbid, but I wrote a paper on people being stoned and saw videos of it. You can think what you want, but a human can take a lot of abuse, and a zombie is even more resilient when it comes to blunt impact on most of their person.

Also, as we’ve discussed, throwing a uniform item specifically designed to throwing (a baseball) is not the same as throwing a rock you just grabbed up off the ground or a less aerodynamic object like a stick. But, let’s track that line of thought. People get hit in the face with baseballs. It happens. They walk away with an orbital fracture or broken jaw (Rhys Hoskins). Disoriented, stunned, and injured, sure, but not dead. You hit them 2 or 3 times with a baseball going around 95mph, sure, you’ll kill them, but that’s beyond the scope of the average human. I acknowledge that most of our characters, though, are above average.

Also, a 10 year old kid throwing 90 mph is pretty astonishing and I honestly don’t even believe that. It definitely should not be considered the average.

30

And again, I point you to the failing in your logic: you cannot apply ultrarealism to an arbitrarily-chosen set of weapons and not the rest.
You either apply the logic you suggest to all weapons, in which case daggers, punching, arrows, guns and the like are useless, or you apply the logic those weapons are already working under to throwing weapons. But not one logic for one set of weapons and another for the others.

31

I can understand that. Reality isn’t particularly fun – I suppose I got a bit distracted by a discussion of throwing weapons as a concept, rather than ‘throwing weapons as a part of the game’.

32

you aren’t going to walk off an orbital fracture, that is going to rapidly incapacitate you which is, “as good as dead”.
As @Aabbcc points out, we don’t demand that other attack types be instantly lethal in order to treat them as lethal. Many but not all guns are, arrows and javelins are, some melee weapons are, explosives are, but that leaves out a lot of attack types that aren’t irl instantly lethal, but are eventually lethal

33

The ability to throw a dagger or a grenade at a moment’s notice is the more interesting aspect of throwing, though as implemented it is unrealistic. Perhaps compensate that by making most of throwing inferior to its competitors. Think of it this way: just use a bow as a low tech dedicated range option if its needed. If something gets close throw an ax without dropping the bow and without the need to aim as a pseudo melee attack. It won’t be as op if something else readily accessible is just better, and can still be useful if it complements what else the character does best. The real number crunching can start with grenades, which might be better documented and needed due to their single use nature. If someone can get hydraulic muscles, railgun, the other minor support items, and the strength to carry an engine in their pocket then go to fantasy levels of over powered. Maybe then turn throwing into a heavy resource spender for hulk levels of destruction.

34

102 posts were split to a new topic: Throwing martial arts

47

This is reminding me again that most of the Trowing is OP actually comes from the time before the modification to gun ranges, when the formula was such that throwing had about the same range as everything else. I, for one, haven’t used throwing for more than grenades since way back then.
To recap the old complains:

  • throwing had the same range as other ranged weapons, this has been fixed.
  • throwing skill rose too fast, becoming a top tier option simply through sheer high skill and easily-available ammo.

I don’t know if the second one was ever patched.

Have any of you seriously used throwing since then?

48

The other issue, as set out by Kevin, was that some early throwing weapons were too powerful. Apparently you could sit there with a pile of rocks and take on a horde of zombies successfully. If that’s true, then that probably deserves some attention due to it being an easy earlygame “I win” button (Not like there isn’t a bunch of those around…) The only way to get around that is to nerf the throwing weapons themselves or, probably more usefully, nerf low skill throwing, probably in terms of accuracy.

49

But was that feat achieved at low skill or high skill?
Because I remember a complain being that one could train throwing to a high level on a couple days fighting stragglers and wildlife while collecting ammo, and then you were strong enough to take on hordes.

Of course you can take on hordes at max skill level tho, I don’t think it’s desirable to discourage that, perhaps only nerfing it a little bit.

50

^ this sounds reeasonable enough, this could apply to knives being thrown well enough to hit blade first instead of hilt first, it shouldn’t be good_throw = bonus damage, but good_throw = use thrown_effects so throwing that blade into a zombie could cause call for the effects of that thrown weapon, which would impart their special effect on the target, assuming that the target is not immune to the wepaons special_effect.

This way, accidently well thrown weapons, and skilled throwers alike would have high versitility, but usually realitively low damage, except where apropriate, utility weapons

honestly more special effects for weapons seems like something that should be utilized more in general, espeically in crit_hit type cituations. It allows weapons to be pretty meh, unless your lucky, or skilled. As keeps getting brought up, things like a stone to the gut, is going to do little to a zombie, who is largely going to ignore all but the most grievious wounds, unless they are physically dibilitating. Hit one in the head, large chance of special_effects like stuned, or off_balence, or maybe mild_stun.

Heh ranger's aprentice fanboy moment

heh, the erlier debate got me thinking of that Rangers aprentice section where Princess cassandra learns to use the sling. Then goes to meetings and parley’s with a “heavy looking neclace” that reassembles into a sling. Sling throwing is seen as the easier alternative to get really good at the bow. Granted, it was used as a primitive weapon for that very reason.

I think its easy to forget that this is largely because we are used to thinking of more modern compound bows and the like that fire more straight forward a maner rather than the fluctuating, flexing arrows that would be used when slings were most prevelent.

old arrows are hard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8Yp9SjCU5E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7zewtuUM_0

51

Nearby, sure. By the OP’s model, at a range of 60ft for an expert.

It’s more tied up in melee than I expected. Could probably do melee forms for axe and javelin now, but that’s a huge aside.

Never expected to do it like that. I did think the existing code would be more generic. Throwing styles. Patterned after how martial arts are implemented. In design, not literal fact.

Wrong comparisons. They just don’t fit you. Nothing wrong with that.

Versus the living. Besides, sling throws break bone and tear flesh.

Roman sling bullets used against Scottish tribes 2,000 years ago were as deadly as a .44 Magnum
The stones, which hurtled along at up to 100mph (160km/h), could take the top of your head off with nearly as much force as a .44 Magnum.

Therefore, throwing styles\arts, following the design and reusing some code from martial arts.

Martial art, and throwing art. Axe has both.

52

No idea, but I assume fairly low skill, since it seemed to be a earlygame concern. Reducing the exp rate for throwing seems like a good fix for that though, especially considering how slowly most other combat skills go up.

Centrefire bows can be more accurate, but most modern bows still deal with arrow flex, it’s just a matter of getting arrows of the right flexibility for the poundage of your bow. The reason people are more accurate now is mostly down to sights and material quality.

Sounds good to me.

Martial arts are still martial arts, not proficiency with particular weapons. If you can find a real world martial art that specifically uses axes or javelins, make it for the game. That’d be awesome.

Exactly. Codewise I don’t see how you could limit weapon use to something specific and I don’t think martial arts is the way to go about it. Possibly traits, like the one for marshals? A sling proficiency trait?

It’s not that they don’t fit, it’s just that lategame an A7 rifle with a pile of bionic power and a metabolic interchange CBM kicks the crap out of a pile of throwing axes, or whatever the equivalent throwing weapon would be.

In that case torn flesh isn’t going to make any difference either, and arrows tear flesh better than rocks. Bones might be a problem, but if we limit damage to anything that breaks bones suddenly 99% of weapons are useless.

Those sling bullets aren’t pebbles, and I’m not convinced they were as powerful as a .44. Not from Daily Mail, anyway. I suppose you could have a martial art to boost sling damage, but that seems like a buff for the sake of a buff. It’s not really a martial art so much as proficiency with a weapon.

Throwing arts would be even more random. One for each type of throwing weapon? Of which we have all of 3? 4?

A martial art just for tomahawks seems arbitrary, and I don’t see how you could have multiple throwing styles.