balance Make Drifters only throw rocks at long-range

[Warentan]

One of the most annoying parts of fighting is the drifters being able to throw rocks when standing a foot in front of you. If the player is standing far away or too high to be reached, it makes sense for a drifter to resort to another option, but when standing close-range, there is no reason for a mainly melee enemy to throw a stone, reducing block rates and preventing the player from dashing back to avoid the attack.

An example of a better system would be to wait 5 seconds after the last attack before using ranged attacks again. this means that if the drifter can confirm the player is unreachable and should throw a rock.

[Kristofers Tomass Borovskis]

Yep, fighting drifters in melee is nigh impossible without getting a stone or two into the nose. I like that they throw rocks at a range but within a block or two it is just annoying.

[Thorfinn]

Aren't drifters already weak enough?

[LadyWYT]

I disagree--the rock throwing can actually be very useful sometimes. The windup for the attack means that they'll have to pause, which makes it easier to put distance between you and them(not that it was terribly hard). The rock throw also counts as tier 0 attack, I believe, which is useful if you have a high tier drifter after you that you can't deal with for whatever reason--in that case you WANT them to be throwing rocks instead of trying to smack you. Last but not least, drifters that throw rocks at close range are likely to hit other monsters nearby, which can start an entertaining monster mosh.

I would also say that drifters aren't particularly intelligent, so it's on brand for them to be making some questionable decisions.

[Jon20]

I've got to agree. I never liked the addition of them throwing rocks, coupled with the unchangeable player voice volume made getting hit a jumpscare fest. Before the mods that changed both, it genuinely made me not want to play the game a few times. I can deal with everything else but those two things are not fun to deal with for me. Hopefully they implement a ranged thing for the rocks, or else make it an option that you can tick on or off on world gen

[LoveWyrm]

Drifter stones are one of the few annoyances I'm fine with... Not many games out there where the humble chucked rock is actually a kind of offensive option.

Let the primitives have their projectiles lol... The moaning is worse, really.

[Obison]

On 4/23/2025 at 1:59 PM, Thorfinn said:

Aren't drifters already weak enough?

I agree with this statement, although I also agree the rock throwing is a bit "off " and especially annoying when in large groups. Maybe buff the melee damage and hp, and decrease throw frequency and increase min range instead. We now have bowtorn to do that annoying ranged damage, so a little less from drifters along with a buff  to them might feel better.

[LadyWYT]

4 minutes ago, Obison said:

Maybe buff the melee damage and hp, and decrease throw frequency and increase min range instead. We now have bowtorn to do that annoying ranged damage, so a little less from drifters along with a buff  to them might feel better.

I'd suspect such a change to drifters would result in an increase of complaints of how they hit too hard and take too long to kill. The rock throws are more annoying than actually dangerous most of the time, which is somewhat the point--to annoy players enough to potentially provoke a fight or otherwise cause errors in judgment. In large packs, drifter rocks can be much more dangerous, however, drifters are also a lot more likely to pelt each other instead and start a brawl between themselves in that scenario(which a player can use to their advantage).

Bowtorn do a lot more damage, yes, however...their ranged attacks are currently countered easily by a shield or the most basic of armors.

[lying_dice]

i can see why it would be seen as annoying seeing as it is often just about unavoidable, especially if the hurt sound is annoying to you, but there is an argument to be made that thrown rocks are in line with the messy attritive combat system this game seems to go for. the fact that there are very few fights a player can get into and leave wholly unscathed seems inline with the philosophy of the game. my view of what the combat is trying to be might be somewhat altered by how laggy my computer is when a wolf is on screen lol.

[Broccoli Clock]

The question is, where do they get the rocks, they are never seen bending down and picking them up, which suggests...

 

[Tom Cantine]

10 hours ago, Broccoli Clock said:

The question is, where do they get the rocks, they are never seen bending down and picking them up, which suggests...

They're quasi-mechanical, dropping fibers and gears when killed. Perhaps they're hurling bits of themselves, which would explain why some of them no longer have functioning legs.

As for the OP, I genuinely do not have a problem with drifters throwing stuff at close range. Yes, it's annoying, but that's kind of the point of them existing at all, miserable hate-filled wretches. And as I have myself desperately loosed arrows at a charging (already wounded) bear as they got too close, I don't think it would be sporting to deny drifters the same option. 

[Grummsh]

5 hours ago, Tom Cantine said:

They're quasi-mechanical, dropping fibers and gears when killed. Perhaps they're hurling bits of themselves, which would explain why some of them no longer have functioning legs.

As for the OP, I genuinely do not have a problem with drifters throwing stuff at close range. Yes, it's annoying, but that's kind of the point of them existing at all, miserable hate-filled wretches. And as I have myself desperately loosed arrows at a charging (already wounded) bear as they got too close, I don't think it would be sporting to deny drifters the same option. 

Yeah the ones crawling are the ones who threw 1 stone too many  

[Broccoli Clock]

13 hours ago, Tom Cantine said:

They're quasi-mechanical, dropping fibers and gears when killed. Perhaps they're hurling bits of themselves, which would explain why some of them no longer have functioning legs.

Thanks for the reply, but I wasn't being entirely serious..

 

[RottenRobyBow]

this is exactly what ive been thinking oh my, thank you so much for saying it.

honestly i think drifters should only throw a rock if youre in a hard to reach area, but even then i kinda wish it was just a rare thing that happens,
cause imagine the feeling youd get if you were just chilling on a dirt pillar cheezeing a drifter, and then they randomly throw a rock at you, id be so surprised. but ingame they just machine gun throw rocks at you and it gets sooooo annoying.

shooting and long range should just be a bowtorn thing

[Entaris]

It wouldn't be so bad if every mob's attacks were uninterruptible. Then I could see a kind of "counterpunching" style to emerge, ducking back, triggering a rock throw, then darting back in to stick'em with their arms up to stagger them a little. As it stands, the random close range rocks is on par with the 180 no scope free hits bowtorn get during the chase.