PC Tracking people around the map with spears??

Being unaware of it may not be the problem for the victim.  I assume the problem is that this has no counter.  You can't remove it, and you'll probably need to go to your base sooner or later.

My solution would be that if a player is hit by a thrown spear, they're guaranteed to get a visible debuff.  No need to reinvent the wheel with a 3rd person view or something.  This debuff would have an item to counter it, like other injury debuffs.  Say, a puncture debuff, cured by using a medical clamp item.  Some bow projectiles could cause this debuff, too.  Failing that, it could just re-use the bleeding or laceration debuff.  In this way, the victim controls if and when the spear is removed and drops to the ground.  I guess there'd be nothing stopping them from then taking it for themselves.

As far as changing the mechanics of the spear, there are several ways it could go.  I don't like using the darn thing, because I don't like not having a weapon after I attack, and I don't like filling up my tool belt with redundant weapons, either.  Someone on the Steam forum mentioned changing the spears to be the ammunition rather than the weapon.  An atlatl would become the weapon that launches the spears.  Any quality level or mods would be tied to the atlatl.  That thread devolved into an argument about realism and terminology, but I like the idea from a gameplay standpoint.  The value of the ingredients that go into the launcher versus the ammunition could be balanced, so that losing a spear doesn't mean losing everything.

 
Spears as a PvP weapon would make a very poor choice no matter how you slice it (especially from a realism standpoint).  My thought would be simple... automatically return the spear to the thrower if they hit a player.  It's not like spears would be suddenly overpowered in PvP if that were the case.

They should also add a "bungee" mod for spears that automatically returns them regardless of target (presumably tied to the spear and the player's wrist, or something like that).

 
Maharin said:
They should also add a "bungee" mod for spears that automatically returns them regardless of target (presumably tied to the spear and the player's wrist, or something like that).
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That's crossed my mind, too.  Press reload to 'pull the cord' and retrieve the spear, whether or not the cord is visible.  I'd definitely try spears again if they had a mod like that.  For that matter, the 'GPS tracker' function could be its own mod for spears, instead of all spears having it.

 
Crater Creator said:
That's crossed my mind, too.  Press reload to 'pull the cord' and retrieve the spear, whether or not the cord is visible.  I'd definitely try spears again if they had a mod like that.  For that matter, the 'GPS tracker' function could be its own mod for spears, instead of all spears having it.
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yeah but....99.9% of usecases involves throwing a spear at an NPC for which the GPS tracker works perfectly to help you retrieve your spear if you missed or if the spear goes inside the zombie or animal. Because the spear is a primitive weapon, you kind of need the tracker function on it from the very beginning and not as a mod that you may not find or be able to craft until much later. I say "must" in the sense that it is a QOL addition that you don't want to play without once having had it. I do realize that we had spears for a long time before having the tracker function for them. But there really is no going back in my opinion.

The problem described in this thread is going to be an extremely rare usecase in which a player doing PVP unequips his gun and loads his spear and is able to get close enough to throw it and hit the opposing player without the player realizing they've been hit so that they go back to their base unaware of being tracked. Even if the player knows they've been hit but can't remove it from their own body they can (and would) eat glass before going back to their base and reveal its location.

So we are talking about a slim chance of being able to stick a person in the first place and then an even slimmer chance that the person stuck doesn't know they're stuck and then the even slimmer chance that even if they do know, instead of committing suicide and respawning clear of the spear the player is going to choose to go back to their base while wearing their new body piercing.

I mean, I'll mention it for sure because its funny and we should be able to remove stuff that is currently impaling us but nothing can convince me that changes need to be made for this rarest of rare usecases that would hurt the QOL of those of us who use spears in their most common usecases.

 
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Roland said:
yeah but....99.9% of usecases involves throwing a spear at an NPC for which the GPS tracker works perfectly to help you retrieve your spear if you missed or if the spear goes inside the zombie or animal. Because the spear is a primitive weapon, you kind of need the tracker function on it from the very beginning and not as a mod that you may not find or be able to craft until much later. I say "must" in the sense that it is a QOL addition that you don't want to play without once having had it. I do realize that we had spears for a long time before having the tracker function for them. But there really is no going back in my opinion.

The problem described in this thread is going to be an extremely rare usecase in which a player doing PVP unequips his gun and loads his spear and is able to get close enough to throw it and hit the opposing player without the player realizing they've been hit so that they go back to their base unaware of being tracked. Even if the player knows they've been hit but can't remove it from their own body they can (and would) eat glass before going back to their base and reveal its location.

So we are talking about a slim chance of being able to stick a person in the first place and then an even slimmer chance that the person stuck doesn't know they're stuck and then the even slimmer chance that even if they do know, instead of committing suicide and respawning clear of the spear the player is going to choose to go back to their base while wearing their new body piercing.

I mean, I'll mention it for sure because its funny and we should be able to remove stuff that is currently impaling us but nothing can convince me that changes need to be made for this rarest of rare usecases that would hurt the QOL of those of us who use spears in their most common usecases.
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That's a little off the mark, because if the community at large concludes that this technique offers them an advantage, it'll quickly become a more common tactic.  But I also acknowledge and accept that TFP don't prioritize tuning for PvP.

I actually saw the idea less as going backwards on quality-of-life, and even less as addressing this inadvertent PvP tracking function.  I saw it more as repackaging an interface feature that's already implemented, in a way that gives the player more interesting options in game.

If you use and like the spear tracker, great!  You can mod your spear to include that.  If you don't like or need the tracker, then you can make a spear without it.  But rather than being a main menu option that 'hardcore' players turn off, people that aren't going to use the tracker get to make a cheaper spear, and put the resources and/or mod slot they save towards something more important to their playstyle.

It reminds me of the minibike in A14.  At the time, I thought that all the minibike needed for tracking was a tall, brightly colored flag on it, that you could see above the tall grass.  Now you can see every vehicle on the compass.  And that is superior.  But instead of being the default, that could be a mod you put on your vehicle if you want it.  I know you're a strong supporter of as little interface as possible, so I'd actually think you'd be someone who'd appreciate the choice to opt out of interface elements like this. :)

Similarly, the minibike used to require a padlock as part of its crafting recipe.  I didn't like that not having a padlock meant I couldn't build a minibike (especially in single player, where I was the last man on Earth and really didn't need one).  The padlock should've been an optional mod you install to enable the ability to lock and unlock your minibike.  It's the same idea as putting a tracker on things.  We have these neat quality of life features, but instead of them just being part of the system we take for granted, they could be available as upgrades over the default, giving us more goodies to weigh the costs & benefits of, without programming new features.

One can argue that the tracker is such a beneficial part of the spear that I needs it all the time!  But that same logic would apply to all sorts of items/playstyles.  Once you've played a sniper character with a scope on your rifle, you don't want to play without one.  Once you've played a stealth character with night vision, you don't want to play without it.  And so on.  A feature can be adored by players, but still have a cost you appreciate and choose to pay for instead of being ubiquitous.

 
Well the QOL issue of the tracker on the spear is a bit more than simply loving it for the sake of convenience. It also constitutes a fix for the limitations of the game itself. Spears can land and fall into the mesh of the ground terrain so that it is completely invisible to the player. If the player can get close to where it is it will be automatically vacuumed up when pressing E but you have to know right where it went. The same is true for zombie bodies. The spear can sometimes completely enter a body and not be visible at all. Now on a 1 to 1 fight this isn't necessarily a problem. But when you have multiple enemies and you have three spears on your belt that you are throwing and then backing away to avoid another enemy it is easy to lose track of them and the tracking system becomes a must for regaining your spears.

I just don't see it as a plausible option given the current state of how terrain voxels fit together to make the player go without that feature for however long it takes for them to be able to make or find a tracker mod. Especially since such a mod would necessarily involve electronic parts and not be a primitive glue/wood/leather product.

Sure, I'm for complete removal of HUD displays as a challenging cinematic way to play the game. But, in for a penny in for a pound. If I'm playing vanilla and already accepting the HUD displays in the game I'm not going to say no to something that really helps spears be a viable weapon.

Finally, I'm sure that if such a technique became widely known its attempted use would increase. I still have doubts about the numbers for actual successful attempts there would be even if all PvPers started adopting the technique.

But I already mentioned it to the devs so it is up to them now how they want to proceed.

 
Roland said:
I just don't see it as a plausible option given the current state of how terrain voxels fit together to make the player go without that feature for however long it takes for them to be able to make or find a tracker mod. Especially since such a mod would necessarily involve electronic parts and not be a primitive glue/wood/leather product.
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If you were to make the tracking feature a mod, you could also make it into several;

- a "Day one" version would be a flag on a string. With a limited range for the icon, or maybe make the flag part behave "against physics", trying to point out of the ground - no icon, just a little unnatural flag in the wild.

- a "forged iron" version... a sound maker? An old-school alarm clock, light version.. With an icon, with a limited duration and range. Maybe as a utility to alert zeds as well.

- an electronics age version with the current behaviour (maybe some means for the opponent to detect it would be required) Of course, this would have very little utility outside PvP

 
Prime said the easiest way would be to have it just fall out of the player after 20 seconds and he will consider that for A21.

 
theFlu said:
If you were to make the tracking feature a mod, you could also make it into several;

- a "Day one" version would be a flag on a string. With a limited range for the icon, or maybe make the flag part behave "against physics", trying to point out of the ground - no icon, just a little unnatural flag in the wild.

- a "forged iron" version... a sound maker? An old-school alarm clock, light version.. With an icon, with a limited duration and range. Maybe as a utility to alert zeds as well.

- an electronics age version with the current behaviour (maybe some means for the opponent to detect it would be required) Of course, this would have very little utility outside PvP
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Not a good idea to add yet another set of mods that are basically useless.

Any changes made for pvp need to not effect the pve aspect of the game at all, this is after all 99% a pve game. The toggle was only added as a why not?

Hopefully prime can add the spear just falling off, that would fit helping pvp while not affecting pve at all

 
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