Shattered Kingdoms

Well you've heard my complaints, and you haven't acknowledged them.

This is something that negatively affects most lowbies and cloth-armored people who can barely train alone as it is.

That, and it's REALLY irritating to "drop all.spear" after every fight.

Really, I don't understand why this is necessary at all. I absolutely don't see any pros whatsoever, but maybe I'm being blind.

Is it so armor ruins quicker, and thus we have to go spend four obsidian in over-inflated cities to get more?

You are overreacting. NPCs will only throw weapons at you if they have no way to reach you due to another NPC being in their way. Therefore it doesn't have any impact on people who fight alone or who group with other PCs to tank for them.

It does affect people who were able to level in perfect safety from behind charmies and pets. So... now that MAY not be true. Being behind a pet is still a benefit - you will get hit with at most 1 attack in a round, instead of multiple hits. You may have to expend more resources on healing. You MIGHT even have to pay attention to some fights now. I would suggest throwing those weapons back during the fight, instead of just dropping them. If you don't bother, they will disappear soon enough.

Don't ever be surprised when NPCs get better AI. This game is about tactics, which means that I will make the NPCs smarter at every opportunity.

I haven't seen this in action, but it sounds like the sort of thing that would be cool on a few NPCs here and there. Not so cool if it's widespread.

Peace,
Bux

Are the NPCs supposed to throw weapons at you if you're in the front row next to your pet but have your pet start the attack? It seems a bit much that you're at risk of getting attacked by the NPC yet they can still pull their infinite cheater daggers out of their [REDACTED] and chuck em at you.

How is this game about tactics when you take away tactics from us? I know that you do not like pole-maces but now you have just ruined it. Most all the NPCs on sk are in fact able to have weapons. So about 80% of the NPCs now will throw things at you if you are behind a pet. If they randomly threw things that would be one thing, but they are throwing things every round.

I dislike this change for the following reasons:

Wimps certain classes that have always been weaker in combat but could overcome that by having a 'pet'. Granted all classes could buy a pet but its different when the pet is part of a class ability.

I also don't like the idea of weapons that crumble as soon as they hit the ground like in Men in Black, but it really doesn't matter.

I've only recently came back to SK so this next comment is made without first hand experience. -- I despise the thought of npc's having a bag of holding filled with whatever projectile they throw. I'd be ok with it if they drop the bag of holding when they die, and it doesn't crumble.

Also, based on what I've read so far it sounds like if you are behind an NPC NPCs throw. If you are behind a PC they do not....not sure the logic behind that at all. Maybe to promote grouping? I've never liked how npc's know the difference between an npc and a pc. Murder of a npc should be same as murder for a pc. There should be no code that behaves differently based on if there is an npc/pc about.

I like it for the following reasons:

...

Something else I don't like: the NPCs seem to throw these spears/axes/daggers without actually holding them. Is this true? Because Dulrik suggests we throw them back, but in order for us to do so we must remove our weapon, wear the throwing weapon, throw it, reequip our weapon. It doesn't seem worth the effort.

You throw from the inventory.

If a NPC is grouped with another NPC, and he gets hurt and rescued by the other NPC, is it safe to say the rescued NPC will start throwing things at you?
I don't like that very much since it's going to make some leveling areas very hard to use for lowbies/newbies who can barely manage places like the bakemono caves.

Edit: This sucks for sorcs and necros who, at early levels, have to use their damage spells from behind a pet to level. I think that's been mentioned before though.

Yes, it's more than safe, it's fairly assured, and yes, this change will affect lowbies/newbies more than anyone else. Higher level characters are going to have means of dealing with the thrown weapons, whereas lowbies are going to take most of them in the face.