A few concerns for 1.22 RC3

[SongAngel]

I’ve been testing RC3 with a new world and have some concerns and suggestions regarding the hunter class. The aiming changes made spear hunting feel incredibly sluggish during my first hunt. Even with the hunter's accuracy buffs, the increased wind up time made it feel like I was fighting the UI rather than the prey.  The accuracy bonus felt wasted because the time to steady your aim was so slow that the prey was already on top of me before I could even take a quality shot.  It forces you to stand perfectly still for far too long which kind of breaks the flow of a skilled hunt and is not as fun as in the current stable version.

By the time I finally dispatched the wild boar I discovered that I could not oil the hide without cooking the fat first?  Needing a cooking pot just to oil a hide feels like friction for no good reason to me.  It's just one more thing that is now locked behind finding clay and felt a bit out of place for a nomadic sort of class and the way that I play it.  In fairness, I always want to find clay as soon as possible, but it means I now have to stop and hunt for it just to do basic processing of a kill.  If the goal of this change was realism, I should point out that raw fat has historically been used for hides without needing a cooking pot.

To address the aiming issue, I suggest that the hunter’s 30% accuracy bonus should also apply to the aiming speed. This would allow the hunter to maintain the role of an agile fighter while still leaving the slower more deliberate aiming for the other classes.

Regarding the fat rendering, is there a reason for this requirement other than slowing the players progress?  If not, I would suggest allowing raw fat as in previous versions, and perhaps adding a perk if you use the rendered fat.  Since pelts are most often used for clothing, perhaps using rendered fat would add a warmth or durability bonus for example.

Anyway, I'm enjoying experimenting with the new update and just wanted to offer my two cents and a big thank you to the developers for a wonderful game!

Edited 4 hours ago by SongAngel
grammar

[Slam]

8 minutes ago, SongAngel said:

To address the aiming issue, I suggest that the hunter’s 30% accuracy bonus should also apply to the aiming speed. This would allow the hunter to maintain the role of an agile fighter while still leaving the slower more deliberate aiming for the other classes.

Bro gonna be a machine gun once they get a bow on their hands.

yeah so don’t forget bows exist, they won’t have the same problem with aim speed as spears, and your playing hunter, so you don’t even need feathers unless your useing metal heads. Spears are still a good initiation weapon, or just hunting animals that don’t back, such as most female animals, and rabbits.

[PoisonedPawn777]

I personally find the spear to be relatively easy to use, you can charge up the throw while running and stop for maybe a second before throwing to increase accuracy. Would be nice to have the option of using raw fat for pelt making as well as rendering it for long term storage though.

[SongAngel]

11 minutes ago, Slam said:

Bro gonna be a machine gun once they get a bow on their hands.

yeah so don’t forget bows exist, they won’t have the same problem with aim speed as spears, and your playing hunter, so you don’t even need feathers unless your useing metal heads. Spears are still a good initiation weapon, or just hunting animals that don’t back, such as most female animals, and rabbits.

Thanks I appreciate the reply but this change is still a problem, and I don't think the solution should be "wait until you get a bow".  Spear hunting should still be viable early game especially for the hunter class.  I think it just needs tweaked a bit.

Edited 4 hours ago by SongAngel

[Tom Cantine]

I feel that spear hunting IS quite viable early game, but it emphasizes stealth and surprise, as well as anticipating the escape path of the fleeing animal so you can follow up (again stealthily!)

The other thing that makes the spear viable is that it works on fish. If you can maneuver a fish to somewhere near the surface, you can kill it with a thrown spear.

I don't really have a problem with slowing the spear aiming time. One of the main complaints about spears (and the reason we didn't have iron ones, I think) was that we auto-reload with other spears in our inventory after throwing, so people could spam them too fast. That becomes a much bigger problem once you get iron, because iron ore is so plentiful relative to the materials to make various kinds of bronze.

 

[SongAngel]

17 minutes ago, Tom Cantine said:

I feel that spear hunting IS quite viable early game, but it emphasizes stealth and surprise, as well as anticipating the escape path of the fleeing animal so you can follow up (again stealthily!)

The other thing that makes the spear viable is that it works on fish. If you can maneuver a fish to somewhere near the surface, you can kill it with a thrown spear.

I don't really have a problem with slowing the spear aiming time. One of the main complaints about spears (and the reason we didn't have iron ones, I think) was that we auto-reload with other spears in our inventory after throwing, so people could spam them too fast. That becomes a much bigger problem once you get iron, because iron ore is so plentiful relative to the materials to make various kinds of bronze.

 

Viable was a poor choice of words on my part.  Yes it is viable, but unless the combat mechanics of animals has changed, most do not flee until/unless they are close to death which means they are chasing you down for stabbing them like the wild boar in my scenario.  No stealth involved in those cases it just comes down to who kills who first lol.  If the complaint was the ease of spamming spears, it almost sounds like auto-reload is the problem rather than the aiming but I would rather they don't take that away either!

Edited 4 hours ago by SongAngel

[LadyWYT]

Welcome to the forums!

5 minutes ago, Tom Cantine said:

I feel that spear hunting IS quite viable early game, but it emphasizes stealth and surprise, as well as anticipating the escape path of the fleeing animal so you can follow up (again stealthily!)

The other thing that makes the spear viable is that it works on fish. If you can maneuver a fish to somewhere near the surface, you can kill it with a thrown spear.

I don't really have a problem with slowing the spear aiming time. One of the main complaints about spears (and the reason we didn't have iron ones, I think) was that we auto-reload with other spears in our inventory after throwing, so people could spam them too fast. That becomes a much bigger problem once you get iron, because iron ore is so plentiful relative to the materials to make various kinds of bronze.

 

So much this. I finally ended up doing the math and the old spears, when thrown, turned out to be the best weapon choice for Blackguards as well, which kinda says a lot when a ranged weapon is the best choice for a class not meant to be good at ranged combat.

The new spears feel a lot better, in that they're fitting in more as a good general purpose weapon, but not one that's going to be the best option for melee or ranged damage. In melee, they have a greater poke distance, but can't do critical damage and the base damage won't be as high as the falx(nor will the spear have the falx's autoloot feature for monsters). For ranged combat, the spear will hit harder than the bow, but takes up more inventory space and can't be fired as fast, making it good for softening up tougher targets at a distance but not necessarily good for killing them before they can engage in melee.

It's also worth noting that iron/steel spears can be tempered to further increase their damage(which, the power boost is currently bugged for ranged damage, but anyway...), which can give them a far greater damage per shot than the old spears.

24 minutes ago, SongAngel said:

Thanks I appreciate the reply but this change is still a problem, and I don't think the solution should be "wait until you get a bow".  Spear hunting should still be viable early game especially for the hunter class.  I think it just needs tweaked a bit.

Like I said above and others have said already, spear hunting is still perfectly viable for hunters, both in the early and late game. The main balance problem before was the fact that spears could be rapid-fired, which made them a little too strong compared to other weapons and gave hunter--an already strong class--even more power compared to other class options due to the hunter's innate ranged bonuses.

Rather than nerf hunter, it's better to just rebalance the spears by slowing the fire rate a bit, and adding iron/steel spears that can be tempered for more damage per shot. The end result is that firing a spear becomes a more deliberate action, rather than a cheap "machine gun".

Regarding how hunter plays--currently, the hunter seems to be more heavily focused on actually hunting animals in the early game, with the late game focus shifting more towards an actual ranged warrior suitable for monster-slaying. In prior versions there wasn't as much of a shift since the rapid-fire spears made combat overall much easier.

[PoisonedPawn777]

Spears have longer melee reach than anything I care to take on anyways. Sure, may get hit by a boar or deer every once in a while, but generally it's easy to keep animals at arms length. I have found hunting to be easier in 1.22 overall.

[Tom Cantine]

I have also (very recently!) discovered the utility of the humble club. Much more durability than a spear, not QUITE as much damage but you can smack away at things faster. So it's not a terrible melee weapon to chase down that wounded boar with.

 

[SongAngel]

Thanks everyone I appreciate the feedback.  I guess like most things, you get used to something you like and when it's changed you don't always like it at first.  I'm gonna go with it and give it a try.

[Slam]

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

The end result is that firing a spear becomes a more deliberate action, rather than a cheap "machine gun".

Im sorry for the confusion, I ment “machine gun” as the 30% increase aim speed would also apply to the bow, which aim speed is unaffected in 1.22.