1.10 analysis and recommended changes

[Lunatic]

Sweet christ, this update broke SFD. It's a good thing it's so fun because otherwise I'd be really frustrated.

THE ANALYSIS

So before I get into the thick of things, I'd like to state where the game was at one update prior and what happened to make this update so absolutely bonkers. Last update, the game was fairly alright. I'd say it favored defensive play (quite heavily in my opinion; it's harder to be aggressive). That's not to say players couldn't make a solid push, it just took more prep, perhaps more items, and a lot of skill. Lots of tough timing to get down to break through someone's line of defense. That, or used some careful positioning to slowly chip at their health/cover so that you could more easily break in. I'd call this defensive play since you aren't really putting yourself at risk anyways.

This update? Throwing took a single look at the metagame we have right now, ripped it out of the ground, and spat in its grave. This update is nuts, if you guys wanted true chaos in every match then I think you outdid yourself. If it moves, it hurts, and if it hurts, it stuns. Like, this patch is just crazy.

Switching to throw mode is FAST. Lightning quick. Throwing your weapon is just as fast. You can jump and throw without any landing cooldown, throwing is super fast and leaves no vulnerability since you can punch/block directly out of throw. It deals huge damage (most melee weapons and sidearms do about 20; knife deals fucking 40 lmao. Other sharp weapons seem to do between 25 and 35). Not only is switching to throwing mode for a melee weapon quick, you can throw a melee weapon faster than you can swing with it for more damage. Melee is officially dead; melee weapons have become pocket projectiles to fuck with people. There is pretty much no reason to melee right now since you can do more damage, fulfill the same role (stun, disarm, hit through dodges) quicker with more damage, bigger hitboxes, virtually no vulnerability/endlag, AND you can do ALL OF THIS without losing forward momentum. I hardly ever even bother with melee combat now. I run forward, do a couple kicks (which aren't unique to melee combat, they can be used at any time) and then throw my weapon really quick while they're trying to recover. Melee is only good any more for a desperation attempt with fists and while you're falling off an object; throwing your weapon is just overall better.

Next, we have debris. Oh my god, the debris. Every time a pebble shifts slightly near a fighter, they take damage and stagger like someone punched them. This is also bonkers hahaha. I like the idea but at the same time we already have enough to worry about when it comes to things breaking and exploding around us, getting showered with little bits and pieces and taking any damage at all as a result is too punishing. If you get enough little bits of debris together in one spot and kick them at someone, they can die or go flying. Sometimes both! Of course, kicking while near someone with debris in the way can be used to override a block and mix up the opponent. Then you can haul back and throw your big damage! Explosive barrels spawn shrapnel as well, and anything they blow up will also spawn shrapnel, which can cause you to be stunned into a falling barrel or Johnny's shotgun blast you were trying to roll through. Just getting stunned by a slow-moving piece of wood is cause for fear.

And then the grenades. Oh my god the grenades. Cook these bad boys for half their timer and then hit someone. Spam the rest of your nade count too; once they're stunned they can't get out. Even if you only landed one impact and the explosion from the grenade (assumed point blank since grenades drop at their feet) you'll deal 90 damage. Ninety fucking damage, out of 100. You can stone someone to death with grenades or mines without the boom at all. I understand what was being attempted here but these explosives already did enough damage; giving them more lethality was far from necessary. Grenades were unique projectiles that could be used to set traps and mixup your opponent. Cooking a grenade as someone came close only to throw it at your feet gave you space, and since grenades were so strong it was very risky to challenge someone's grenade placement. 70 damage is a really large amount; you don't want to catch any of it. You could throw them at walls as you walked through doors or down stairs, you could throw them ahead of you without cooking and run by them so that they'd stop at cover and detonate on anyone chasing you. It was a good tool for creating space; it could be used to flush people out of cover; it can surprise people that are focused elsewhere or are focused on a big team fight. Grenades have SOOO much utility as it is. Now they can stunlock someone and instant kill them with one pickup.

But do you want to know the biggest kicker when it comes to this god tool?

It only has one counter, and that's blocking. You know, the move that has a big cooldown after use and relatively short active frames? If you want to catch someone's thrown weapon/take no damage from debris/stop someone's grenade in it's tracks without stun, you have to block at JUST the right time and hope to hell that it was the only thing coming at you because a rain of debris can leave you in stun for 1-2 seconds depending on how much is falling on you. Overall, the only way to stop something from hurting you when it comes in your direction is a block, and while I like that blocking gets to be the counter to this otherwise unstoppable move, throwing is just so fast and easy that baiting out a block is super simple and players have no other means of avoiding the damage. Since there's such a large cooldown on blocking, players better hope they correctly time their stuff or have a slomo because once they fuck it up the thrower gets a free hit. Better mixup that jump because otherwise you'll be eating at least 15-20 damage, depending on what's thrown, and that's being generous. For reference, a katana does 15 per melee swing, and I'm talking about throwing pretty much any weapon.

Now, I love throwing. I repeat: I LOVE throwing. This powerful option opens up a new world in SFD that allows newer approaches, lightning fast combat, and highly aggressive play. Guns will always reign supreme at medium to long distance, and the shotgun will always dominate CQC, but throwing has revolutionized the game and will continue to as players learn to work around it and optimize damage and combo potential. I've already devised a couple of combos that utilize throwing, and between a couple other ideas I have and the highly anticipated (by me) grabs we'll be getting later, I only see throws as growing more powerful from here on. This needs to be addressed; objects as projectiles and throwing weapons in general are just too strong. Keep the aggressiveness at all costs but tone it down.

THE SUGGESTIONS

Now that I've covered all of THAT, let's get down to my proposed changes. Some of this is probably repetitive by now.


-Throw damage is too high. Most weapons when thrown at point blank or even footing will deal 20 damage. Sharp weapons (katana, fire axe, machete) deal some 30 or more damage! This is understandable for strong weapons like the katana and fire axe but it's still too much damage! The knife does just over 40 damage at even footing, and while this is understandable since it's a special weapon quirk, it's still an enormous amount of damage. A sawed off blasts twice for 44.4 damage, throwing a knife is basically two shotgun blasts. It happens quickly, can be drawn fast, and if you're lucky enough not to hit yourself off the bounce you can pick up the knife again before your opponent can steal it. Sidearms can be thrown for 20 damage, most all melee weapons at least 20, and considering that's a huge boost over their usual damage values (we're talking a maximum of 11.5 for blunt weapons) with added mobility and damage (all of that stated above when it comes to the benefit of melee vs just throwing) throwing has been made too powerful. Halving damage across the board would help this mechanic imo. I don't want the damage to become negligible - a player should be properly punished upon being struck. However, no player deserves the fate that awaits them when they're hit repeatedly by a thrown pistol or pipe wrench. At most I'd like to see these weapons do 15 damage, 10 at the lowest for their base throws. Of course, if your throw has some form of acceleration factors behind it and it gets faster, it should do more damage. But 20 from the get-go is just nuts.

Objects should move a certain speed before they become a projectile. Some things move very little before they are a projectile, damaging players that they touch. Some examples include:
--Dead players drop items and then they hurt nearby players.
--Just dropping an item injures players that are near you as it spawns.
--Throwing a weapon at very close spaces will have it bounce off the victim and damage the thrower.
--Kicking a piece of debris will cause it to impact anyone nearby. Slow movement speed and small movement time yet it still strikes players.

Throwing straight out of hand is one thing, it starts with all that momentum. Having very little momentum as something spawns should not damage nearby players, let alone stun them. To accompany this change, I'd recommend a slight graphical cue when a weapon is travelling fast enough to hurt a player. Perhaps a windy little woosh or shine effect can surround a weapon or it can sparkle as it flies through the air to indicate that it will in fact fuck you up.

-Debris, the nearly impossible to see killer. Generally roams in packs dealing very little damage over 20 little bits, kick the pile with someone nearby and laugh. While generally dealing low damage per hit, it's still a very annoying feature to know that I'm at my last 5 health and an errant splinter could travel in my direction and end my game. It also deals stun and goes through rolls, which means that my well-timed dodge gets interrupted and I eat shit as Ivan pumps me full of Magnum. I recommend either lowering/removing damage, removing it's collision with players, or removing it's stun. All of these together create a huge annoyance that can hardly be taken advantage of by the player. This goes beyond dumb luck for the kill, this is dumb luck for sheer annoyance. Unless they have like legit no health, it won't kill, and currently explosions already deal enough damage; cover breaking is punishment enough when you're on the offense. This is overkill in a way that manages to be less overkill and more overall awful.

Thrown gear has practically no solid/reliable counter. Guns? They have a great counter: Rolling and diving. Rolls have ok dodge frames while dives have superb safety, covering great distance with a large amount of time safe from bullets. Of course, you still have a 10% chance to be hit through dodge, but that's much more manageable since you still have the odds on your favor. What makes this defensive tool strong is how long it's active for and how prominent guns are. I'd say dodging in this fashion is in a good place, with very few weapons hitting guaranteed through a dodge. Currently, throwing weapons can only be blocked or completely avoided, there is no other way to prevent yourself from taking a hit or protecting yourself. I've seen others recommend adding the ability to use melee attacks to block thrown weapons, but I don't see it. Instead, I propose we have the ability to use the pickup key to catch gear by increasing the pickup range subtly. You could also have gear that's moving fast have a larger grab box so that players have a better way to grab items. The problem I foresee is players spamming the pickup item key to prevent themselves from ever getting hit by a thrown weapon. My proposition is definitely a start; I'd be sad to see some cooldown applied to any part of what's going on with throwing gear. Hopefully we can figure something out, as just increasing blockframes will cause more problems elsewhere if you don't overhaul and revamp how blocking works to allow for a constant block. If you have ideas to better stop a weapon throw, let's talk about them! Grabs could possibly catch weapons thrown at them, giving them a solid use for when someone wants to toss things at you. Definitely not a fix in the now, though.

If grenades/mines are going to do impact damage (usually about 20 each impact) they need to deal less explosion damage. Currently, both of these explosives deal 70 damage at the middle of their radius, which is a game-ender in most scenarios. Directly hitting someone stuns them, deals roughly 20 damage, and allows you to just spam your grenades at them while they have no legit hope of getting away. Even if they turn tail and run, it's likely you'll hit them in the back on their way out since you can keep moving during your throws, causing them to trip near enough to the first grenade that it sets off a chain reaction on the other grenades closer to the victim. This will kill him instantly pretty much every time. Lower throw damage, lower explosion damage, or make it harder to stun with grenades. Currently, grenades feel like Superfighters (Flash) Molotovs took several dangerous experimental steroids and came back with bazookas over each shoulder.

As a final note, after this update, melee feels more than just weak. It feels even more than obsolete. It almost feels like it doesn't belong! Melee is so slow with throwing being better in every regard, that using melee is either a team tactic or a desperation attempt/mixup. Using melee straightforward or even just... Using it as an option over throwing, is limiting yourself. You stand to gain more damage, more quickly, with better ability to position and less to worry about when it comes to the things around you. To keep up, melee really needs a speed boost! Even just a slight one. I'd be super happy to see melee actually do less damage as a result, as it would freshen up the melee fighting in general. Leaving melee as it is right now will kill it entirely, though. If you don't plan to buff melee combat at this point, you don't even need to add grabs. It will be a waste of your time. Unless it counters throwing in the method I described above.

It's 10:30 and I'm exhausted, I have work in ~6 hours so I need to get some sleep haha. Hoping to spur some discussion on the balance state that is throwing, really hoping for solid ideas and input. Thanks a lot for reading! I'll see you all soon.

[mgtr14]

I agree with nerfing debris, but i think we should only remove the stun. Makes no sense for such a small thing to stun a Superfighter.

I agree with missiles needing atleast some momentum before being able to deal damage and stun.

Melee hasn't really been nullified by throwing weapons, although i do agree that throwing weapons is a bit quicker, there is the risk that the opponent may just block it and if he is using fists, equip the weapon you just threw away.

For the grenades, i think they should bounce off a bit after hitting a player so they atleast deal less damage or even completely fall away. Before the update it was hard to time a grenade so good that only the player who was rushing you down would take damage. Now the grenades are a bit more effective in that regard. But otherwise a grenade that comes out of nowhere and deals damage when falling on you is a guaranteed kill, wich isnt good.

EDIT: They could actually make throwing things less quick by making the player having to HOLD the G button instead of just pressing it, and adding a visual for players charging up their throw would perfect it, and the more you held the G button the farther away it would go. So basically pressing G would make the player drop the weapon without much momentum, and holding G would give it alot of speed.

[Billy]

Debris should knock you also down but only if they thravel fast enough, i thing.

[Raptor]

1stly I agree with ur suggestion of the debris and grenades,mines to be changed. Right now the grenade is the most lethal weapon in the game op I would call it,this should be changed

[Iliyan]

there is something that boders me if you jump and just before tuching the surface of ej( a barell or desk ) you destroy that thing and get falldamege so im constanly geting damege when i want to colect a crate thats on a table or barel or desk.
and for the trowing update i dont like the fact that Dead players drop items and then they hurt nearby players.
will you get us a option to preorder or give you money some haw?

[Wozenbelt]

1stly I agree with ur suggestion of the debris and grenades,mines to be changed. Right now the grenade is the most lethal weapon in the game op I would call it,this should be changed .

same

2ndly yes the damage is high for the trowing weapons but,it's not as hard as your saying about the blocks . It's about right to me for the blocking timing I think we will get used to the blocking sppn enough .the damage on the other hand should become a little more reasonable example for the knife the damage should be changed to around 30-35 ? After hitting the 1st guy it bounces off and to hit the secoubd guy the damage is 20? The other trowing weapons are fine based on there range of trowing . Look at bash kraken a post on how far the trowing weapons go...my point here is that the Knife is the WEAKEST Melee weapon in punching (because of its range and damage) which should make it the STRONGEST thrown weapon . Get what I mean ?

Weapons are now large projectiles that cant be stopped by rolls or dives. You can block them with any weapon to negate damage completely, but with the harsh punishment they give you, the block window is just too tight, in my opinion. Add in the smallest amount of ping, and weapon throwing receives even more power.

3rdly for new players or peps that are bad at things like Melee (the past me ) it is very hard to learn Melee (experience ) for some peps(me). If I started playing SFD in this update I will be very happy cause the Melee isn't that BIG a role anymore and m u don't need to be a "Melee pro" to win a match (u mostly needed to know a little pro Melee before in order to win) so my point is that NOW AFTER THIS UPDATE new players get the opportunity to win in games and become good/pro/ and have Fun with out even needing to learn Melee to win????

Raptor, I find this to be your weakest argument. You're saying, "I'm not well-rounded, and this update basically invalidated one of the areas I was bad in. I can win now, and so the game is in a better place." And take note of the fact that you said that melee is hard. In melee, you've got to block a lot of hits, right (assuming the enemy chooses to continue fighting you)? Well, the block window isn't that tight, right? Just block it! After all, all you have to do is block or completely avoid a weapon throw to avoid taking heavy damage from short to mid range. It's not that hard, you said. We'll get used to it, you said.
To put that in more explicit terms: Blocking a weapon throw isn't as trivial as you claim, especially at short range where one can combo the throw into more attacks. You corroborated this point yourself by mentioning your poor melee skill.

So example I am number 1 and my opponent is number 2 . Number 1 (me) goes to kill my opponent with Melee (it's sudden death only Melee weapons ) . I see my opponent has a knife and I'm like shit shit shit I'm dead if he trows it . I go to Melee him . He trhows the knife and I think I'm dead but BUT I HAVE ONE CHOICE THAT IS TO CATHCH THAT KNIFE!!! I press d and have the knife now it's not that hard to do it just train . I go ahead and Melee my opponent who has no choice now but to Melee or die ? The end

Well, for one, why are there only melee weapons? Is this some sort of custom map? I'm surely misinterpreting that.
You are dead if he throws it, because weapon throwing is ridiculous. The force of several punches is applied quickly over a sizeable distance. Why, then, should I punch when I can get more damage and range from a throw? There are enough weapons to go around.
Now, you go to melee him and catch the knife. Impressive! However, that's not a viable option to rely on as I've said above. But then again, I should just, y'know, catch it. It's not that hard, you said, even though the enemy won't always be holding their weapon in their throwing hand and can switch between hands rapidly. But whatever, you're stabbing him now. You say his two choices are to melee or die, but he has a third option that's been available for over a year: leave. He can just block a couple times and leave the fight, because melee is slow, clunky and exploitable.. However, there's a throwable knife in play, and throwable knives are fast, strong and ranged. Then again, if it's as easy as you say it is, he'll block the thrown knife and you guys will play a nice game of father-son catch for a bit, since weapon blocking is that trivial.

[Lunatic]

2ndly yes the damage is high for the trowing weapons but,it's not as hard as your saying about the blocks . It's about right to me for the blocking timing I think we will get used to the blocking sppn enough .the damage on the other hand should become a little more reasonable example for the knife the damage should be changed to around 30-35 ? After hitting the 1st guy it bounces off and to hit the secoubd guy the damage is 20? The other trowing weapons are fine based on there range of trowing . Look at bash kraken a post on how far the trowing weapons go...my point here is that the Knife is the WEAKEST Melee weapon in punching (because of its range and damage) which should make it the STRONGEST thrown weapon . Get what I mean ?

If I started playing SFD in this update I will be very happy cause the Melee isn't that BIG a role anymore and m u don't need to be a "Melee pro" to win a match (u mostly needed to know a little pro Melee before in order to win) so my point is that NOW AFTER THIS UPDATE new players get the opportunity to win in games and become good/pro/ and have Fun with out even needing to learn Melee to win????

EDIT : I read this over to say why Melee is NOT that low as ur saying it went luny(is that ur nick name or something )

So example I am number 1 and my opponent is number 2 . Number 1 (me) goes to kill my opponent with Melee (it's sudden death only Melee weapons ) . I see my opponent has a knife and I'm like shit shit shit I'm dead if he trows it . I go to Melee him . He trhows the knife and I think I'm dead but BUT I HAVE ONE CHOICE THAT IS TO CATHCH THAT KNIFE!!! I press d and have the knife now it's not that hard to do it just train . I go ahead and Melee my opponent who has no choice now but to Melee or die ? The end

Knife deals 12 damage with just barely under hammer range. For reference, machete deals 12.5 damage. Knife lacks range but maintains high damage, with throwing obviously being it's specialty. This is fine. Knife isn't the weakest melee weapon by a long shot.

Melee isn't that big of a role any more? Melee is hardly a mechanic now. Throwing does everything that melee did but now it's faster, more powerful, much more range, and with more mobility. Throwing does stun and disarms, which is what the main draw of melee was: Players were forced to play by your rules once you hit them. Now, throwing does it all better while the sluggish, weaker melee gets left in the dust. Melee is hardly useful any more, getting in a melee fight with someone is begging for a thrown weapon to the face when your opponent backs up.

I think my biggest issue with the "just block it" argument is that blocks have big cooldowns and are active for a very small amount of time, allowing players to bait out a block and then throw the weapon. When someone shoots at you with an M60, the argument isn't "just roll", the M60 has enough firepower to shoot past your rolls. A player with a weapon can alternate between rolling and blocking but they will die if they stay in open sight of the M60 regardless of their technique. Other automatic weapons will do this as well, but obviously with less killing power. A weapon is also thrown very quickly once ready, making it very hard to react to. The average human reaction time for visuals is between 215 and ~250 milliseconds. From there, good ping is usually 100; ping is measured in milliseconds. That means the weapon is thrown, then 100 milliseconds after it is thrown the player will see this actually happening. Then, they have 200 milliseconds before they can properly react. From there, it's a big question: Are they already in a position ready for a block? Not always. If they aren't in a position to block can they sheathe their weapon or turn around in time to also block the thrown weapon? Even if they do, it's another 100 milliseconds back to the server that they tried to block. Weapons travel so fast that it's quite likely you're going to strike someone with a throwing weapon faster than they can properly react, and even if they do react, ping will more than likely damn them regardless.

And that's where I think your anecdotal evidence is lacking. Catching or blocking a thrown weapon is less a reactionary or easy action; instead, it's a predicted one. Blocking a thrown weapon right now isn't you skillfully catching the throw because you saw it happening, it's because you predicted they would throw at that moment and blocked. If you were wrong they would have waited and then thrown after you were done blocking and completely vulnerable. Now, if someone disengages from melee, backs up into throwing state and then throws, there's enough time to react to that, but then we're back to baiting out blocks and throwing afterwards. You can't just block it without slomo or a large distance between you and the thrower.

As a final note, nobody is locked into a "melee or die" scenario. They can block and walk away at pretty much any moment. What are you going to do, throw your weapon at them? You said it yourself, it's very easy to just block bro. Just catch it man it's so easy. If throwing makes running away a death experience then being able to easily block a weapon isn't a valid argument.

[Raptor]

Ok il just delete my 2756 letter post ... I don't like getting hated and il keep it that way . No hard feelings

[Del Poncho]

!	Message from: KliPeH
	Merged an new take on an idea with an already existing thread.

The new update is obviously one of the funniest updates that this game has ever seen,but it sure needs some adjustment,and I think the best thing to do is to try all the combinations till you find the perfect match.

At the end of the day,I think the concerns about the update are:

• Too much damage (Already discussed by many on the main topic,I think Hjarpe said that they have already planned on how to fix it);
• Shrapnels everywhere,dealing crazy damage;
• Getting killed by the thrown objects of a corpse
• The ability to throw items at low range makes melee kind of useless;
• Grenades strong enough to destroy entire civilizations;

Space traveled requirement

The best solution I can see for some of these problems is not to make objects deal damage(nor effects,such as the stagger and knock down),unless they have traveled enough space.
To be clear,a thrown object that hasnt traveled enough space to be considered a thrown weapon doesnt just ignore players and forniture,but bounces on them like it would do normally,just without any effect on the player.
This would fix:

• People throwing weapons in really close range (Not speaking for all the comunity,but I think throwing weapons in melee range is something that I would avoid. As Lunatic explained in about a quintillion words,it kind of makes melee useless);
• Getting mauled by an explosion in close range AND it's shrapnels (Such as debris,crates,weapons,etc) if standing close to an explosive barrel. I agree that barrels are and should be a really powerfull toy to kill your enemy,but getting killed in just a single explosion is a bit too much;
• Thrown objects bouncing back at you (Well,the object,if thrown close enough to the enemy,would just bounce back on you,but without dealing any damage or effect)

Shrapnel

While it's obviously fun to have shrapnels travelling around the map hitting people,too many debris near a barrel can cause the departure of an entire room,and I don't think this is really gameplay-wise.

The question is,what if barrels automatically spawned a random amount of shrapnels when exploded?
What if these debris acted more like projectiles,instead of acting just like thrown objects?
If debris were actual projectiles (with proper sprites,obviously),they could do everything a bullet does:

• Explode another barrel;
• Destroy a weak floor (such as in Police Station);
• Cut the hook of a crate,to make it fall down and squish an oblivious fighter;
• Other bullet stuff(?)

Hell,add the idea you had for bouncing bullets to the recipe and you get the perfect chaos!
The possibilities are endless!

[Iliyan]

Grenades strong enough to destroy entire civilizations hahaha yes i think its naw op and a easy use for new players(but originaly if you cnow haw to cook the granade it dose no give you any problem) (granadess naw are the new granade luncher)(but still granades are not so op as "the pople in the forum" puts them y rarely get killed by them)
Getting killed by the thrown objects of a corpse this bug soud be fixed soon lets hope

The risk I took was caluclated, but man.....am I bad at math.( i love youre ending)

[[Failman]]

There's nothing wrong with being able throw weapons from close range, you can usually catch it using the block button and even if it's true that it's sorta of a gamble most players tend to play on impulse rather then actual thinking until the very end of the match making them much more predictable. Melee was always bad in the first place, having the option to throw a weapon at a running low Hp enemy IMHO is a good thing.

I've always agree that debris needed to be delt with, having a flying object so small that you can't see or avoid is VERY annoying I'd suggest being able to roll or dive away from small debris however having crates and dead body's kill players isn't new honestly I think this is an excellent feature, adds variety.

[Del Poncho]

I must say,like always,I spoke too soon after an update.
Most of the problems got fixed with the 1.10.1 update,and after getting used to it,the throw update has very few flaws,and it's possibly the funniest update of the last years.
I don't agree anymore with almost all of those things I wrote. Hope I'll wait a little more to write something next time.

[DanQZ]

Space traveled requirement seems extremely unrealistic, but if that is better, I'm all for it.

[Lunatic]

SFD isn't a realistic game. I wish people would stop trying to make it one. Most people don't survive full-on getting sliced by a katana, let alone survive getting cut 5 times and then being able to sprint a marathon.

Suitcases do not hurt people more than a katana.

Most people don't shrug off getting set on fire.

Most strong people don't get blown up and then walk away with a little dirt on them.

Most people don't survive multiple explosions if they just down some pills.

Seriously, this game isn't even close to realistic. Please don't try and make it one.