Combat frustrations

[Mr_Fission]

Hello, I'm really enjoying the game so far, but I had some feedback regarding combat I'd like to pass along.

Recently my friend and I built a base near some bombardier beetles, so we've been fighting them pretty regularly every time they respawn.  To me, combat seems unresponsive and clunky.  Basically my problem goes something like this:

> Enemies regularly one-shot you, or massively damage you with each hit, meaning you have to rely on agility and not being hit.

> Slow club weapons are virtually unusable because the attack animations are so long.  Spears in melee are too weak to be viable too.  This means I have moved to ranged combat as my main option.  

> First I used bows and arrows, but they do very little damage, and more annoyingly, as I shoot them, they leave large, useless "an arrow is here" indicators which block my field of vision and make subsequent shots harder to aim.  Arrows also fly off into the sky or drop through the ground randomly.

> Because of the low damage and other problems with bows & arrows, I have settled on throwing weapons as my preferred type of combat.  I started by throwing planks of grass at the beetle, which was surprisingly effective unless he was within minimum range at which point my throws did zero damage.  However, the throw button being "R" means I cannot physically tap it while strafing right with the "D" key.  So I had to remap block for "R" and throw for "right click".

> Since there was specifically a skill for throwing spears, I built 10 spears and used them instead of grass.  This is where throwing weapons really showed their main problem.  When I'm being chased by a giant enemy that can and will one-shot me, and I am throwing spears at it, not only do the thrown-spear icons still totally block my view, but when I run over to them to pick them up, I have to have my cursor *literally exactly perfectly precisely* on the one exact pixel over my narrow spear, otherwise I can't pick it up.  This is while the beetle is still chasing me and can one-hit kill me.  Despite all of the other problems with combat listed above, this one issue is the main problem I have.  Picking up thrown weapons is hugely frustrating.

So my suggestion is this: If I am standing near a thrown weapon or shot arrow, and I press the pickup button, I should pick up the item *regardless* of whether I'm looking at it or not.  Contextually it should be clear that I'm in combat, standing on top of a thrown/shot weapon, and I clearly intend to reclaim it.  Having to aim at it - particularly at night in the pitch black - makes combat worse.

All that being said, I love every other aspect of the game.  I'm building a tower right now, as well as a cross-yard network of raised roads that will allow safe rapid transit to/from key locations.  Fun times.

[SnickerSnack]

I feel your pain. Here is the solution I presented a few weeks ago: [SUGGESTION] Turn off HUD markers for spent arrows during combat - Grounded: Feedback and Suggestions - Obsidian Forum Community

I haven't tried throwing weapons yet, so I wasn't aware it would create a similar problem. 

[ossyahn]

I very strongly agree with the orgy of arrows surrounding the enemy that's very distracting. The arrows being hard to pick is relative immersive (you don't pick arrows in the middle of combat). Being able to pick the spear from the bugs body as part of a melee attack would be an awesome mechanic by the way, and would solve part of the throwing problem (only happens when the spears are on the body, so you are more careful to not miss), and makes throwing spears a kind of build.

I completely disagree on the part that club weapons are virtually unusable. I have to say that I've only faced the bombardiers in tandem with my mate, so I don't know about how it feels playing solo. I usually use use bow and arrow (second tier bow + shooting hat + shooting perk makes it usable, you just have to be patient and get those), he uses the tier 2 club, that stuns and does a lot of damage. The attack/block dynamic is well done, and the randomization of the attacks in the last update makes it not mechanical, and so, not boring.

Btw, the only reason I use my bow for that is because I have a huge ping for some reason (it's in the bugs-to-address list at the moment) and enemies teleport and kill me all the time if I'm too close.

Your problem might be that you are not in the correct place gear-wise yet. Good armor and weapons make a huge difference, and there's a mutation that also helps you with them. We used to steer tf away from bombardiers at the beginning. Now we just hunt them for sport (and parts).

 

Edited January 14, 2021 by ossyahn

[Meghan]

6 hours ago, ossyahn said:

I very strongly agree with the orgy of arrows surrounding the enemy that's very distracting. The arrows being hard to pick is relative immersive (you don't pick arrows in the middle of combat). Being able to pick the spear from the bugs body as part of a melee attack would be an awesome mechanic by the way, and would solve part of the throwing problem (only happens when the spears are on the body, so you are more careful to not miss), and makes throwing spears a kind of build.

I completely disagree on the part that club weapons are virtually unusable. I have to say that I've only faced the bombardiers in tandem with my mate, so I don't know about how it feels playing solo. I usually use use bow and arrow (second tier bow + shooting hat + shooting perk makes it usable, you just have to be patient and get those), he uses the tier 2 club, that stuns and does a lot of damage. The attack/block dynamic is well done, and the randomization of the attacks in the last update makes it not mechanical, and so, not boring.

Btw, the only reason I use my bow for that is because I have a huge ping for some reason (it's in the bugs-to-address list at the moment) and enemies teleport and kill me all the time if I'm too close.

Your problem might be that you are not in the correct place gear-wise yet. Good armor and weapons make a huge difference, and there's a mutation that also helps you with them. We used to steer tf away from bombardiers at the beginning. Now we just hunt them for sport (and parts).

 

I agree that you may just not be at that point yet with gear because I had similar frustrations about the enemies being too difficult on my single player game but with standing out of reach with a bow and arrow it was barely doable in the past. Just in the past week I made Ladybug armor and a bone trident (with the mutation) and now I feel confident in facing almost any bug (wolf spiders are still pretty difficult) head on. 

 

[Mr_Fission]

Please understand, I'm not commenting on the difficulty of the fights.  Being three-shot by a bombardier wouldn't make picking up thrown spears any less frustrating.  I'd still have to walk up to it.  Come to a full stop.  Look down.  Find the spear visually on the ground.  Aim the mouse over its tiny graphic.  Then hit the pickup key.  If it didn't pick up, I'd have to jiggle the mouse around while spamming pickup.  That's not an ideal mechanism to reclaim small or hard-to-see items.

The current implementation for reclaiming thrown weapons makes it much more effective to throw single planks of grass instead of spears.  They do just as much damage, and are far, far easier to pick up afterwards.  This strikes me as kind of silly.

Having to put crosshairs over an item to interact with the item is very much video game logic.  Humans have hands, and can interact with narrow items very easily in real life with a scoop / grip motion.  If that was modeled in game, it'd make throwing weapons a lot more dynamic.

And fighting enemies solo takes a different skillset than teaming up on them.  With the exception of wolf spiders, every enemy I've come across so far is trivially easy when two dudes bash its brains in with stun weapons.  Solo is a totally different story.  If you miss with a club, or it doesn't stun, you're getting hit.  Which is fine.

[ossyahn]

 

9 hours ago, Mr_Fission said:

The current implementation for reclaiming thrown weapons makes it much more effective to throw single planks of grass instead of spears.  They do just as much damage, and are far, far easier to pick up afterwards.  This strikes me as kind of silly.

I actually agree with what you're saying, there's definitely things that could be done to improve the picking-up-spears mechanics and make throwing spears a legit build without you having to be loaded with spears. Although I'm not sure if what you say about grass planks is still true with tier II spears like the trident.

 

9 hours ago, Mr_Fission said:

And fighting enemies solo takes a different skillset than teaming up on them.  With the exception of wolf spiders, every enemy I've come across so far is trivially easy when two dudes bash its brains in with stun weapons.  Solo is a totally different story.  If you miss with a club, or it doesn't stun, you're getting hit.  Which is fine.

Probably I'm biased by playing with a friend, but what I mean is that I've also killed all bug types on my own except bombardiers and wolf spiders (which are the ones that are not trivial in co-op), and the club is still very useful if you manage to time the parry right. And if you happen to stun it, you can fully charge your attack. 

[Mr_Fission]

Ahh I see what you're saying.  Yeah I've been working primarily with the starter spears and the insect club so far.  And I haven't learned to parry / block effectively yet, so if you say the club is viable, I retract my original statement that it's not.

[hyperwind5]

Just getting into the spear throwing game, at the end of the game.  I think my biggest gripe is that sometimes when the spear is stuck in the bug, when it dies or releases, somehow the spear gets launched super far away from the body.  I've lost two lvl 7 rusty spears after fights, did manage to find one of them after some searching (fight took place inside the oak tree, the spear was outside of the tree by like 70 cm)

I put my spears away after losing a second spear out in the open, too expensive to keep replacing.