Throwing Brand Removals thread


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Dungeon Master

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Post Friday, 10th May 2019, 16:12

Re: Throwing Brand Removals thread

I’m a step ahead of you. Boomerangs always return even at 0 skill in the current iteration.

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petercordia, Rast, sdynet

Zot Zealot

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Post Saturday, 11th May 2019, 06:13

Re: Throwing Brand Removals thread

With javelins always penetrating I'll feel like I'm shooting myself in the foot if I ever start throwing with a kobold/halfling. (I know they don't actually get any worse, it just feels that way.)

Might it be possible to boost kobold throwing, by eg increasing their abtitude or reducing their much rates?

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Saturday, 11th May 2019, 06:15

Re: Throwing Brand Removals thread

Or by letting them throw javelins

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nago

Dungeon Master

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Post Saturday, 11th May 2019, 18:10

Re: Throwing Brand Removals thread

This has been merged into master.

Slime Squisher

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Post Saturday, 11th May 2019, 23:10

Re: Throwing Brand Removals thread

petercordia wrote:With javelins always penetrating I'll feel like I'm shooting myself in the foot if I ever start throwing with a kobold/halfling.


Conversely it seems like Throwing is going to be astonishingly good on races that can use javs, and it's already pretty good - and if you don't go Oka or Trog, the luck of the draw on getting Shoals and a lifetime supply of javelins will be even more important. I'm generally impressed with this change but I worry all-penetration javelins might be a bit too strong.
Ascension reports with too many words since 2016.

Spider Stomper

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Post Sunday, 12th May 2019, 02:27

Re: Throwing Brand Removals thread

hm, if all-penetration javelins can be too strong, how about creating a probability of being given a penetration brand?
formula: 10 + (throwing skill * 3) + (throwing skill / 3)%
The probability is 10% when the skill level is zero, and 100% when the skill level is 27. For enemy use HD instead of skill level.

Slime Squisher

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Post Sunday, 12th May 2019, 02:32

Re: Throwing Brand Removals thread

sdynet wrote:hm, if all-penetration javelins can be too strong, how about creating a probability of being given a penetration brand?
formula: 10 + (throwing skill * 3) + (throwing skill / 3)%


I thought that might be the next option. It's obviously less strong and that might fix the problem (if there is one) but it's a bit of a change from the current situation where you can use a penetration javelin to pick out a summoner from their meatshield.
Ascension reports with too many words since 2016.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Sunday, 12th May 2019, 03:10

Re: Throwing Brand Removals thread

Penetration is usually inferior to Portal Projectile, it's really not much of a buff for non-Trog characters. Admittedly Trog characters are not in need of a buff either, but y'all are way overreacting to this, just like when large rocks got penetration.

I do think penetration would work better as an innate property of a whole weapon class (throwing, crossbows, whatever) than an innate property of one weapon/ammo type within that class, though. If it's on one ammo type then you get a bunch of quiver swapping. Obviously still a huge improvement over having the egos though, thanks ebering.

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Blades Runner

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Post Sunday, 12th May 2019, 06:38

Re: Throwing Brand Removals thread

Penetration could be changed such that it is a formula. Something roughly like the following:

(based on skill and str)
You have x% chance to penetrate past the first enemy, decreasing to x-y%, and so forth with gradually decreasing chances with each successive penetration.

Zot Zealot

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Post Wednesday, 15th May 2019, 21:43

Re: Throwing Brand Removals thread

I'm playing an Ogre thrower, and I really appreciate the changes you made.

Some comments:
Throwing is really strong. I cleared the dungeon up to D:15 without going into any branches with little trouble.
Boomerangs are really convenient.
Boomerangs of dispersal are a nice feature in the game. (They saved my life once or twice.)
Javelins are really strong. At my current throwing skill they are stronger than large rocks, even against single targets (because they throw much faster). It might play a factor that I've only had silver javelins so far (from Oka). I think javelins are probably too strong.
Stones are OK at killing stuff in the early dungeon, but drop off in usefulness, which is good. (imo)
Sometimes I throw a large rock at a sleeping enemy and I miss. The enemy invariably wakes up. I don't understand how this is possible.

So far I'm carrying all throwables I've found. Optimal play has won out over quality of life, so congrats ;)
I'll probably start dropping throwables fairly soon though. Poisoned darts, stones, silver tomahawks, and plain javelins all look redundant. I would have dropped the stones sooner if I wasn't worried about running out of tomahawks. Oka doesn't seem inclined to give me any. Silver tomahawks are redundant because in any situation where I need extra damage I'll use a javelin, and plain javelins are redundant because I have enough silver javelins.

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chequers, nago

Spider Stomper

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Post Thursday, 16th May 2019, 03:03

Re: Throwing Brand Removals thread

I've thought about remove poisoned darts, silver tomahawks, normal javelins, but I think this is too extreme an idea. I think we are close to the goal of reducing the number of items... maybe?
Therefore, I will now turn to improve the '0-skill no-brainers' problem rather than this one. I guess we can probably find a way to solve the remaining inventory management problems in the process of improving the '0-skill no-brainers' problem.

Zot Zealot

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Post Thursday, 16th May 2019, 10:57

Re: Throwing Brand Removals thread

I should clarify the poisoned darts are only redundant in the late game. I remember many baileys which I could not have beaten without poisoned darts. My Ogre thrower also has the staff of Olgreb, making poisoned darts even less useful to him than usual.
Because javelins are OP, I would prefer removing silver javelins and buffing silver boomerangs (to the point where they deal more damage than javelins.)

Slime Squisher

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Post Saturday, 18th May 2019, 18:10

Re: Throwing Brand Removals thread

The shortcut keys ( and ) for cycling through your quiver don't seem to acknowledge boomerangs or darts

Halls Hopper

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Post Tuesday, 21st May 2019, 02:13

Re: Throwing Brand Removals thread

Just wanted to share the feedback on the throwing changes so far. Here is the game in question: https://crawl.kelbi.org/crawl/morgue/tabtab/tabtab.txt.

Overall throwing felt very strong and I liked both jav's penetration and boomerangs. It does seem like the frequency of silver javelins on the other hand is way too high (maybe it was high before but I never noticed, or this game is just an anomaly). I really should not have 99 silver javelins after completing shoals.

Blades Runner

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Post Tuesday, 21st May 2019, 14:28

Re: Throwing Brand Removals thread

Are silver javelins actually a problem? They're normal javelins other than against OOF and slimes. I've never seen 99 though even in the new patch.

I'm liking the changes overall, going back to .23 for CSDC I'd not look forward to throwing again with all the split brands. Though with that FeBe pick I guess I didn't have to worry about that this week :/.

Dungeon Master

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Post Tuesday, 21st May 2019, 14:44

Re: Throwing Brand Removals thread

Silver is now silver plus steel. According to the objstat runs you just got a high roll.

Zot Zealot

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Post Thursday, 23rd May 2019, 00:04

Re: Throwing Brand Removals thread

Because of the change to darts, I've started using darts of datura (formerly needles of frenzy). I like them!
The reason I find myself using them now is that characters with stealth can just pick them up and use them, whereas formerly they'd have had to train throwing. I expect this wasn't the (main) intention, but I think it makes the game more fun :)

Also, I don't know whether this is a bug, but I haven't seen any darts of sleeping yet.

Dungeon Master

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Post Thursday, 23rd May 2019, 00:32

Re: Throwing Brand Removals thread

Darts of sleeping are removed.

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Rast

Swamp Slogger

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Post Thursday, 30th May 2019, 20:10

Re: Throwing Brand Removals thread

petercordia wrote:I'm playing an Ogre thrower, and I really appreciate the changes you made.

Some comments:
Throwing is really strong. I cleared the dungeon up to D:15 without going into any branches with little trouble.
Boomerangs are really convenient.
Boomerangs of dispersal are a nice feature in the game. (They saved my life once or twice.)
Javelins are really strong. At my current throwing skill they are stronger than large rocks, even against single targets (because they throw much faster). It might play a factor that I've only had silver javelins so far (from Oka). I think javelins are probably too strong.
Stones are OK at killing stuff in the early dungeon, but drop off in usefulness, which is good. (imo)
Sometimes I throw a large rock at a sleeping enemy and I miss. The enemy invariably wakes up. I don't understand how this is possible.

So far I'm carrying all throwables I've found. Optimal play has won out over quality of life, so congrats ;)
I'll probably start dropping throwables fairly soon though. Poisoned darts, stones, silver tomahawks, and plain javelins all look redundant. I would have dropped the stones sooner if I wasn't worried about running out of tomahawks. Oka doesn't seem inclined to give me any. Silver tomahawks are redundant because in any situation where I need extra damage I'll use a javelin, and plain javelins are redundant because I have enough silver javelins.

Throwing has been insanely strong ever since it got UC-style damage scaling. UC is acceptably balanced because the damage starts at 3. When you have javelins starting at 10 and tomahawks/boomerangs starting at 6, and they're ranged and can get brands, you have a broken weapon type. A HuHu with javelins has a higher attack damage than one with a hand crossbow, which is huge. The downside is the relatively limited ammo, but once you put together a decent amount of non-stone throwables (say 20 or so), you are in a stronger position than any other version of hunter at that point. And that's without considering large rocks.

Ebering's change had little effect on this balance problem. Sure giving all javelins penetration is a small buff (which mostly goes away once portal projectile comes online - my ogre thrower killed TRJ without even getting adjacent to it, by summoning and portal projectiling), but it's a drop in the bucket of overpoweredness that javelins have been for a while.

What ebering's change did affect is the reason why throwing is rarely played - inventory pain. The 2nd most inventory-hogging weapon type, slings, costs 4-5 inventory spaces (sling, stones, bullets, shield, maybe a sidearm). Throwing used to cost 5-15 inventory spaces (javelins, tomahawks, stones, weapon, shield, and eventually poison/steel/silver/returning javelins/tomahawks, penetration javelins, and dispersal tomahawks). Now it is 5-8 (poison/steel/returning/penetration stacks are removed), which is still a lot, but is significantly better. Note that I did not account for spaces taken by resistance stick weapons, which throwing can uniquely take great advantage of.

My playtesting feedback is: (1) this change is great for playability, (2) throwing is about as overpowered as it was before, which is, extremely, and (3) I suggest removing silver javelins and boomerangs, which will not only improve the balance situation but also further improve the inventory situation.

Followup suggestion, which is more about flavor/consistency: if silver is removed, dispersal can become a dart type, and then javelins and boomerangs will all be unbranded.

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duvessa, nago, svendre

Spider Stomper

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Post Saturday, 1st June 2019, 11:52

Re: Throwing Brand Removals thread

I love silver, but I agree with the opinion that it is too powerful. The decision to remove silver is painful but acceptable. Instead, I want to add silver javelin as unrandarts someday. Though it would be tough on the current launcher and throwable system... ;)

Swamp Slogger

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Post Saturday, 1st June 2019, 16:11

Re: Throwing Brand Removals thread

sdynet wrote:I love silver, but I agree with the opinion that it is too powerful. The decision to remove silver is painful but acceptable. Instead, I want to add silver javelin as unrandarts someday. Though it would be tough on the current launcher and throwable system... ;)

FYI there is already a silver unrand: the Lajatang of Order.

Spider Stomper

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Post Saturday, 1st June 2019, 18:02

Re: Throwing Brand Removals thread

Oh, yeah. There's that. It's a silver that can't be thrown. ;)
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Barkeep

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Post Thursday, 6th June 2019, 16:10

Re: Throwing Brand Removals thread

TheMeInTeam wrote:stones (inexpensive item to throw to aggro with minimal noise, though the monster will still make noise).


There's still magic missile...
I am not a very good player. My mouth is a foul pit of LIES. KNOW THIS.

Blades Runner

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Post Saturday, 8th June 2019, 17:55

Re: Throwing Brand Removals thread

Removal of silver sounds good to me. I'd rather not be tempted to collect yet another item, in case it should become relatively more useful than something else (I find a manual of throwing...etc.). For me the reduction of inventory/stash clutter and temptation outweighs any special cases where holding them might yield slightly better results than a non-silver thrown item.

Abyss Ambulator

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Post Sunday, 9th June 2019, 16:59

Re: Throwing Brand Removals thread

I agree. I've played a few Okawaru games recently with throwing as a supplemental attack.

The inventory clutter and decision making is much improved.

The replacement for paralysis and confusion needles is much better balanced: it's still strong at high throwing, but not insta-kill broken.

I like boomerangs through extended to attack low-threat monsters without risking javelins mulching and without having to pick up ammo after.

Well done and thanks!
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