Are arrows not effective in TDM?

[wesp5]

Update: I did some tests in both "The Bakery Job" and "A New Job" with the original values and it looks as if a change is not necessary: You can headshot alerted guards from the front already! This would rather imply that either some missions change this to the contrary, for example no alerted headshots are possible in "Noble Affairs", or there are special guards with more health points.

Edited March 10, 2022 by wesp5

[kingsal]

In my missions, Ive thrown out all material based damage resistance accept armor and “flesh” or cloth. I find it way too granular and hard to read the different materials in game, like chainmail. 
 

I forgot to mention different head/ chest multipliers can be set per difficulty in DR. Through a good bit of testing and tweaking Ive found these ranges work well: 

Head: 2 -3.0

Chest 1.2 - 1.5.

(once again I set these per difficulty)

Anything more is overkill and yes will negate sneak attack bonuses and all material resistances.

[Wellingtoncrab]

@kingsalThanks for those starter values! I am curious if you also modify the stealth damage modifier or not?

[kingsal]

9 minutes ago, Wellingtoncrab said:

@kingsalThanks for those starter values! I am curious if you also modify the stealth damage modifier or not?

No problem!
 

Uhm Ill check but I don’t think so. The stealth modifier is something like 3X which is almost certainly going to kill 100 HP standard guard with a headshot.

[wesp5]

I tested some more and head multpliers of up to 2 just don't work. For example in "Noble Affairs" the guards are all elites with higher health although some of them have no special helmet and look like normal ones. I need to at least raise the head multiplier to 10 to head shot them in one go! Which does not change anything about hitting their armor as this is texture bases as far as I know, so everything except for a perfect hit will not kill them.

Edited March 10, 2022 by wesp5

[kingsal]

30 minutes ago, wesp5 said:

I tested some more and head multpliers of up to 2 just don't work. 

Can you post exactly what you're changing? 

[wesp5]

I changed "damage_scale head" to "10" in tdm_ai_humanoid.def. The original value of "2" was enough for normal guards in "A New Job" for example, but couldn't kill normal looking guards in "Noble Affairs" so I went a little bit over the top. I didn't touch the broadhead arrow def itself and I never found its base damage to calculate what values could be the minimum...

Edited March 10, 2022 by wesp5

[kingsal]

@Wellingtoncrab I apologize the values I use are:

Head: 2 -3.0 

Chest 1.2 - 1.8

I didn't account for the update to the difficulty changes I made in DR.

 

@wesp5Hm very strange. Alright I'll look into this. Sorry I can't help any more until I do some testing myself.

Here are the base spawnargs I use for guards I modify with difficulty settings. Head multiplier up to 3 on easy difficulty. So x4 should be plenty to kill a guard.

    "health"                            "100"  

    "damage_scale head"                 "2"

    "sneak_attack_alert_state"          "3"

The basic broadhead arrow damage in tdm_weapon_arrow.def 

    "damage"                    "35"

[kingsal]

Also I just thought of this. You might not want to blow the damage values out at 10x  or the damage dealt in the mission stats screen will be ridiculous. I have this problem in my some of my missions because of  my holy water damages being insane

[Wellingtoncrab]

Ha! Yeah I have that issue with some of the core prefabs for ambient ai in my mission - the have such huge damage mods on them if you actually kill one the stats look like the player initiated an extinction level event.

[wesp5]

1 hour ago, kingsal said:

Here are the base spawnargs I use for guards I modify with difficulty settings. Head multiplier up to 3 on easy difficulty. So x4 should be plenty to kill a guard.

    "health"                            "100"  

    "damage_scale head"                 "2"

    "sneak_attack_alert_state"          "3"

The basic broadhead arrow damage in tdm_weapon_arrow.def 

    "damage"                    "35"

Oh, I didn't look in the base arrow def. Still if we add it all together, for an attack on an alerted guard I calculate 35x2 which is 70 and shouldn't kill anybody. Still the guards in "A New Job" for example can be killed if alerted. What am I missing?

Also I don't care about damage dealt in some end mission statistics ;).

Edited March 10, 2022 by wesp5

[kingsal]

2 minutes ago, wesp5 said:

Also I don't care about damage dealt in some end mission statistics ;).

You dont? Or players don't

[wesp5]

Just now, kingsal said:

You dont? Or players don't

I don't know if players care, but for my patch it's not important. I increased the Holy Water damage too :)!

[kingsal]

4 minutes ago, wesp5 said:

I don't know if players care, but for my patch it's not important. I increased the Holy Water damage too :)!

Afraid I can't help. You'll have to ask those authors if they are doing anything special.

[Gerberox]

I think the damage versus undeads should be consistent in the entire game, because it's part of the lore. Even the damage versus people should be the same.

It was cool that when I started playing TDM, I couldn't knock out the guards in helmets. I believed this was an universal rule and didn't even try to KO them in other missions. It added some difficulty to an otherwise easy game. I liked that approach because it was consistent and games need consistency in the technical part, i.e. how things work. Unfortunately, such rules can no longer be introduced, because it would break existing missions.

[Zerg Rush]

The knockout of helmet guards are consistent, but need more precision than in guards without helmet, nearly impossible only in heavy blinded guards (these only with boxes from above, gas arrows, fire arrows or mines), and also a bit more difficult in alerted guards. You can also blackjack from behind the steam spider bots in most of the misions.

Undeads normally not so easy to kill with the broadhead arrow, even with the holy water arrowmost time needs several shots, best to the head, easier with the sword from behind (this works also with the bot guards). Only in the last cristmas mision "Hazard Pay" you can kill the zombies easy with a headshot like normal people.

Apart of this only with mines and fire arrows.

Edited March 27, 2022 by Zerg Rush

[Gerberox]

8 minutes ago, Zerg Rush said:

The knockout of helmet guards are consistent, but need more precision than in guards without helmet, nearly impossible only in heavy blinded guards (these only with boxes from above, gas arrows, fire arrows or mines), and also a bit more difficult in alerted guards. You can also blackjack from behind the steam spider bots in most of the misions.

More precision? Really? I never missed a single knockout for a long time, and I played about 12 missions in a row recently. Whatever.

I know alerted guards are harder to KO.

[Zerg Rush]

Accuracy in the sense that you can blackjack a guard without a helmet also if you don't hit him directly on the crown, while a helmeted one you have to hit directly on it so that he doesn't just get pissed off at you, especially the ones with a crest on top of their helmet and shoulder protectors, like the first guard when you leave the sewers in the mission 'Cleaning up the Neighborhood'.