The two most common monsters having 100% accurate ranged attacks is so annoying.

[Ikkus]

Drifters throwing rocks is obnoxious and bowtorns are the most annoying enemy ever made. I will cry myself a river to drown in.

[Diff]

For being rotting abominations they do stay on top of their target practice.

[LadyWYT]

They don't have 100% accuracy though, unless you're standing still. Bowtorn are very easy to dodge if you start moving just after hearing the warning screech--duck behind cover or dart out of the way, doesn't matter as both are viable options. Drifters are a little better at aiming than bowtorns are, since drifters tend to lead their targets and bowtorn do not. That being said, you can still dodge incoming rocks, if you have good timing.

I will also note that while the rock throwing can be irritating sometimes, there are situations where you want the drifters to be throwing rocks. A good example of this is what happened to me and my friend in a recent temporal storm; we didn't have armor or good weapons, so we hid inside where it was safe. Well, a double-headed drifter happened to spawn in the room we were hiding in. Since it chose to throw a rock as its first move, we were able to get a couple paces away from it and poke it to death with spears. If it had opted for a melee attack though, one(or both) of us would have most likely died.

[Bruno Willis]

22 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

I will also note that while the rock throwing can be irritating sometimes, there are situations where you want the drifters to be throwing rocks.

I love provoking drifter arguments too.

[Echo Weaver]

3 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

I love provoking drifter arguments too.

Yes. Getting a bunch of drifters in a pit, fighting among themselves, is my favorite thing to do in a temporal storm.

[williams_482]

Are bowtorns actually 100% accurate still in 1.21? Not long after updating I pillared up 10 blocks or so to sleep, and woke up in the morning to a bowtorn firing wildly around me as I stood motionless. several of the shots missed by several meters below me. 

I assumed that bowtorns are actually shooting the same bone arrows they drop when killed, with their innate 30% malus to accuracy. But I haven't made any attempt to test that. 

[CastIronFabric]

If bowtorns would 100% accurate I would have never seen their spears and wonder why I could not pick them up.

1. I am calling BS on that claim

2. I am not even sure how one could reliably prove that claim

3. I am see bowtorn spears...so....

'yeah I that is because you moved!'

'ok, well, then that would not be 100% accurate now would it'?

Edited September 2, 2025 by CastIronFabric

[Diff]

1 hour ago, CastIronFabric said:

If bowtorns would 100% accurate I would have never seen their spears and wonder why I could not pick them up.

1. I am calling BS on that claim

2. I am not even sure how one could reliably prove that claim

3. I am see bowtorn spears...so....

'yeah I that is because you moved!'

'ok, well, then that would not be 100% accurate now would it'?

We can allow a bit of exaggeration as a treat. In any case, litigating it's not a very interesting conversation. More interesting is whether it makes sense for them to be as accurate as they are, or whether improving accuracy could be a useful mechanic to tie to enemy tier rather than just making higher tiers soak up and dish out extra damage.

[CastIronFabric]

5 minutes ago, Diff said:

We can allow a bit of exaggeration as a treat. In any case, litigating it's not a very interesting conversation. More interesting is whether it makes sense for them to be as accurate as they are, or whether improving accuracy could be a useful mechanic to tie to enemy tier rather than just making higher tiers soak up and dish out extra damage.

yeah not on board with making excuses for exaggerations over setting the record correct.

regardless, on the question itself. I do not actually care I never play with aggression on.

 

[Diff]

15 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

yeah not on board with making excuses for exaggerations over setting the record correct.

regardless, on the question itself. I do not actually care I never play with aggression on.

 

If you want to set records, then bring numbers! That'd be an especially interesting discussion since they aren't easily mined out of a JSON file.

Edited September 2, 2025 by Diff
Clarity

[LadyWYT]

3 hours ago, williams_482 said:

Are bowtorns actually 100% accurate still in 1.21?

They are not, though they weren't 100% accurate before. It's fairly easy to just move out of the way, step behind an obstacle, or otherwise just raise a shield in defense once you hear the warning screech. If you stand still, they will hit you 100% of the time, provided something isn't blocking line of fire...but that's really not saying much since a target that stands still is quite easy to hit compared to a moving one. 

[CastIronFabric]

32 minutes ago, Diff said:

If you want to set records, then bring numbers! That'd be an especially interesting discussion since they aren't easily mined out of a JSON file.

are you being serious right now?

Because I know factually that its NOT 100% therefore I have to bring numbers to proove its a different number and the exact number it is in order to proove that its not 100%?

its really not that hard to just simply let it go and agree that its not 100%.

When I distinctly recall seeing bowtorn spears and trying to pick them up and then being told they are 100% accurate I feel it not unreasonable to point this out.

 

 

Edited September 2, 2025 by CastIronFabric

[Diff]

40 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

are you being serious right now?

Because I know factually that its NOT 100% therefore I have to bring numbers to proove its a different number and the exact number it is in order to proove that its not 100%?

its really not that hard to just simply let it go and agree that its not 100%.

 

Alright, if you insist, I'll bite.

No, they don't hit 100% of the shots they take. Nobody's making that claim. But their shots always, 100% of the time, land where they intended them to, even if you are no longer there, or even if there is something blocking that path. That's what's being discussed here, as that is what is not realistic. There is no deviation from intent to result. They take aim at a single point in 3D space, and fire an arrow/rock precisely there, and it will never, ever land anywhere else but along that precise arc. That's 100%.

If I go outside and throw rocks at a tree 20 feet away, I may hit most of the time even with the both of us completely stationary. But not all the time. And I'm not hitting its trunk on an unerringly perfect arcing path to its center. If I get a bow and arrow, I'll be more accurate, and at a greater distance, but still not 100%. Even in Olympic archery they don't bother with moving targets (for the most part) to provide sufficient difficulty. So I don't find "but you can hide, you can move" to be very relevant to the actual point being brought up. You don't need to fire homing missiles to be 100% accurate with a bow/rock. If you throw some bowtorn in the Olympics and hide a seraph behind each target, the Rust World is going home with the gold every single year. I think we can safely say "yeah, that's odd, what might work to fix this?" without needing to litigate that the absolute has qualifiers, as every absolute does.

But that's why I think that makes an interesting idea for enemy scaling without just number boosting. Bowtorn would be niftier if they didn't just fire the same old projectiles more powerfully, but more accurately. Maybe even less powerfully, but faster. Maybe a theoretical glass cannon nightmare repeating crossbowtorn would be more nightmarish despite having less health.

Edited September 2, 2025 by Diff

[CastIronFabric]

4 minutes ago, Diff said:

Alright, if you insist, I'll bite.

No, they don't hit 100% of the shots they take. Nobody's making that claim. ...

I am not engaging in this.

 

They are not 100% accurate, that is that, end of discussion. I am immutable on that.

Edited September 2, 2025 by CastIronFabric

[Diff]

3 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

I am not engaging in this.

 

They are not 100% accurate, that is that, end of discussion. I am immutable on that.

Be my guest and exit the discussion. If you wanted to just hit-and-run pick-a-nit, you could have exited long ago. As you said, you have no skin in the game as someone who plays with aggression disabled. But nobody has actually made that easily-indefensible claim. "100% accuracy" is not "100% success rate," and the entire distinction is moot when the actual point raised for discussion is "They're too accurate for being the lowest tier enemy."

Getting hung up on 99% vs 100% vs conditional 100% vs whatever just inhibits actually discussing the possibility of minigun bowtorn.

Edited September 2, 2025 by Diff
Formatting

[Echo Weaver]

Getting back to the actual topic, is it true that the rocks/arrows from rust monsters always hit their intended target, or are we hypothesizing on that? That really is irritating, especially the guy who has trouble waking up with their head through the ceiling with Bowtorns taking pot shots at them. 

5 hours ago, Diff said:

More interesting is whether it makes sense for them to be as accurate as they are, or whether improving accuracy could be a useful mechanic to tie to enemy tier rather than just making higher tiers soak up and dish out extra damage.

I like this idea. There really should be noise thrown into Bowtorn aim, and making higher tier Bowtorns more accurate as well dealing more damage is a double whammy.

[LadyWYT]

7 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

Getting back to the actual topic, is it true that the rocks/arrows from rust monsters always hit their intended target, or are we hypothesizing on that? That really is irritating, especially the guy who has trouble waking up with their head through the ceiling with Bowtorns taking pot shots at them. 

From what I can tell, bowtorn are very good at aiming where you are currently, whereas drifters are very good at aiming where you will be. Both types of shots can be dodged if you time your movements correctly, there's just more wiggle-room in the timing when it's a bowtorn shooting at you. 

Not to really beat a dead horse in the conversation, but I would say that...it really depends on how their target moves. They can do a decent job of aiming, but they have trouble accounting for fast targets or split-second changes of direction.

[Fistandantilus]

6 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

"If bowtorns would 100% accurate I would have never seen their spears and wonder why I could not pick them up."

Absolutely have I tried to pick up the "Bow-Spear" many times, lol, I am glad I'm not the only one. I even experimented thinking if I could get it to land in chalk sand or soft material like hay maybe it was a durability factor . 

[Echo Weaver]

15 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Not to really beat a dead horse in the conversation, but I would say that...it really depends on how their target moves. They can do a decent job of aiming, but they have trouble accounting for fast targets or split-second changes of direction.

I think the distinction @Diff is making between accuracy (hitting the exact spot they aim at) and success (hitting you) is important. We can stop beating the dead horse by recognizing that accuracy in this context is not mitigated by moving. Sure, you can dodge the bowtorn's shots if you're looking right at them. It doesn't help much if you don't know where the shot is coming from and every single arrow hits you.

It sounds like you're not bothered by the way they shoot now. I'll have to embarrass myself by saying I still haven't played with them. due to my teen's insistence on modding them out in the game we play together. I find the description in some forum posts of being hit by arrows out of nowhere to be concerning. I'm not great at combat, and I don't love it, but I am very attached to the world being dangerous. When I start a new game, I am not going to mod out the bowtorns, and I think I will have some skin in this (ahem) game.

[Rinner23]

ac·cu·ra·cy

/ˈakyərəsē/

noun

 

1. the quality or state of being correct or precise.

   "we have confidence in the accuracy of the statistics"

    

   technical

   the degree to which the result of a measurement, calculation, or specification conforms to the correct value or a standard.

Edited September 2, 2025 by Rinner23

[Bruno Willis]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

Not to really beat a dead horse in the conversation, but I would say that...it really depends on how their target moves. They can do a decent job of aiming, but they have trouble accounting for fast targets or split-second changes of direction.

Yeah! In other threads I've seen people saying shields are useless: this is the use case for shields. They have a decent chance at just outright blocking a bowtorn attack that you didn't see coming, and they allow you to crouch and try to figure out where the creature is with 100% chance to block the next attack.

This game has a great system of trade offs - if you want to dodge the beasts of the forest, wear less armor, if you want to fight nightmare drifters, wear more armor, if bowtorn keep killing you before you spot them, get a shield or keep moving while outside. 

5 hours ago, Diff said:

But that's why I think that makes an interesting idea for enemy scaling without just number boosting. Bowtorn would be niftier if they didn't just fire the same old projectiles more powerfully, but more accurately. Maybe even less powerfully, but faster. Maybe a theoretical glass cannon nightmare repeating crossbowtorn would be more nightmarish despite having less health.

This is an excellent idea. Horrible and excellent. 

[Diff]

4 hours ago, Echo Weaver said:

is it true that the rocks/arrows from rust monsters always hit their intended target, or are we hypothesizing on that?

Hypothesizing, so I erased my hitbox and stood in front of a gearfoot bowtorn firing squad.

While there are some variations, the differences would suggest a slight difference in firing position rather than some programmed inaccuracy in their firing. I boxed them as best I could be that still leaves them some room to move. But looking down at the shriveled space where my hitbox once was, you can see that all arrows converge and perfectly pass through that single precise point.

 

 

[CastIronFabric]

9 hours ago, Diff said:

Hypothesizing, 

guys..just so you all know, the target is not a wall, the target is the player

should we really get hung up on 99% vs 100%? or the target being a block vs target being the player? maybe neither

 

 

Edited September 3, 2025 by CastIronFabric

[Echo Weaver]

10 hours ago, Diff said:

Hypothesizing, so I erased my hitbox and stood in front of a gearfoot bowtorn firing squad.

While there are some variations, the differences would suggest a slight difference in firing position rather than some programmed inaccuracy in their firing. I boxed them as best I could be that still leaves them some room to move. But looking down at the shriveled space where my hitbox once was, you can see that all arrows converge and perfectly pass through that single precise point.

OK, well that pretty much proves it then. I realize those things are supernatural, but that's some supernatural accuracy there.

[Echo Weaver]

17 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

Yeah! In other threads I've seen people saying shields are useless: this is the use case for shields. They have a decent chance at just outright blocking a bowtorn attack that you didn't see coming, and they allow you to crouch and try to figure out where the creature is with 100% chance to block the next attack.

Huh! Even if the bowtorn is behind you? How early in the game can you make your first shield?