A Game Of Clubs

[BulletForce]

Since their introduction in October 2015, the simple Wooden Club has been by far the best value weapon in the game. For 4 and 15 fiber with the right stats you can one hit players wearing thousands of ingots worth of elite armor equipped with the best melee weapons one can buy. Not only has it been obviously broken for a very long time but it has also made fights in this game one dimensional and one sided. There is literally no point to using other melee weapons at present no matter how elite they are. 

 

To prove my point we conducted a simple test. Player A was equipped with a Mastercraft sword (800+ ingots to make). Player B had a primitive wooden club (4 wood, 15 fiber). The player stats for both players were 300 health, 300% melee. Both players had the same journeyman flak armor equipped costing upwards of 1000+ ingots to make. The result?

Player B with the primitive club took out player A in two swings while player A managed to land one hit taking off a quarter health.

We repeated the test using a pike instead and the result is very much the same. The club is the king of melee weapons currently, it has no rival neither in cost efficiency nor effectiveness. 

We then conducted a third test this time Player A remained the same equipped with a sword and player B was naked with a primitive wooden club but had 400% melee damage and 300 health. The result?

Player B knocked out Player A in one swing.

That is 4 wood 15 fiber beating 800 ingots for the sword + 1000 ingots for the armor. How is that not broken devs? This is beyond broken. You fixed flyers (although after a painfully long time) now these broken club mechanics needs to be fixed. My recommendation would to be scale club damage with armor, similar to the way every other weapon works. This would mean that clubs could still knock out naked players fairly easily but they should no longer be the go to weapon against players in armor. The result would be melee combat that once again sees players using pikes, swords, shields instead of just clubs. Far more interesting gameplay if you ask me.

I am not the first person to complain about this and I am sure neither I will be the last.  The next patch comes out at the end of this month, I sincerely hope the developers will address this very broken gameplay issue by then.

[D90]

All we carry are ascendant clubs now. Like you've stated they've made every other melee wepon obsolete, in pvp anyway. Think a rebalance is definitely needed as there is literally no point in crafting anything else.

[BobRoss]

Make it break armor first and only afterwards damage torpor.

my suggestion:

Chitin and below = 1 hit to break a piece.

prim flak/ramshackle/apprentice= 2 hits for a piece for a prim/ramshackle/apprentice club and 1 hit for JM or above.

JM=3 hits for prim/ram/app/JM club, 2 for MC club and 1 for asc club

MC= 4 hits for prim/ram club 3 for JM club 2 for MC club and 1 for asc club

ASC= 5 hits for prim/ram club 4 for JM club 3 for MC club and 2 for asc club.

RIOT should take atleast 10 hits at prim vs prim and more depending on the quality or the armor.

 

[Burnz]

I agree the clubs are broken.

I was rocking ascendant flak armor the other night, got a bit of de-sync lag and was one hit by some naked using a club. Down I went and lost my gear.

There is like no point to having high quality armor anymore given the max level is 100+. It wasn't that bad when people didn't spec lots of points in movement speed and damage, it was either one or the other. It has become a problem since raising the player level. Players will have high HP, high damage and high movement speed.. perfect for griefing as a naked with a club. 

Someone with 250% melee and 200% club will instantly put you at about 100-110 torpor ?? Why even have 200 torpor when you go down at 50?

[BulletForce]

1 hour ago, D90 said:

All we carry are ascendant clubs now. Like you've stated they've made every other melee wepon obsolete, in pvp anyway. Think a rebalance is definitely needed as there is literally no point in crafting anything else.

Can confirm this. I was on a big raid a week ago and both sides eventually resorted to having a bunch of naked running around just with clubs. No one I saw was carrying a pike or a sword.

[Jostabeere]

2 hours ago, BulletForce said:

[...]For 4 and 15 fiber with the right stats you can one hit players wearing thousands of ingots worth of elite armor equipped with the best melee weapons one can buy. Not only has it been obviously broken for a very long time but it has also made fights in this game one dimensional and one sided. There is literally no point to using other melee weapons at present no matter how elite they are.[...]

Or you could wear a Riot armor costing a few hundreds pearls and Polymer and a club won't do jack to you unless the guy has a perfect ASC club and 600% melee. But in that case he has low health and speed.

Ressource-management'n'stuff.

Use-all-given-possibilities'n'stuff.

[BulletForce]

35 minutes ago, Jostabeere said:

Or you could wear a Riot armor costing a few hundreds pearls and Polymer and a club won't do jack to you unless the guy has a perfect ASC club and 600% melee. But in that case he has low health and speed.

Ressource-management'n'stuff.

Use-all-given-possibilities'n'stuff.

So I need to be level 80 to unlock a form of expensive armor that might offer some additional protection against a weapon that is ultra cheap and unlocked at level 8?

Yep that is balance. 

[Jostabeere]

1 hour ago, BulletForce said:

So I need to be level 80 to unlock a form of expensive armor that might offer some additional protection against a weapon that is ultra cheap and unlocked at level 8?

Yep that is balance. 

You need to be level 80 to be able to get any club above primitive. 

And no. It's not additional protection, it renders low-quality clubs useless if paired with fortitude.

But whatever fits your argument since it's useless to discuss with your kind.

Clubs are OP. Happy?

 

[Burnz]

24 minutes ago, Jostabeere said:

You need to be level 80 to be able to get any club above primitive. 

And no. It's not additional protection, it renders low-quality clubs useless if paired with fortitude.

But whatever fits your argument since it's useless to discuss with your kind.

Clubs are OP. Happy?

 

riot gear has a small amount of reduction of torpor gained by clubs

but riot gear is heavy, expensive and has crap armor stats.

[Jostabeere]

1 hour ago, Burnz said:

riot gear has a small amount of reduction of torpor gained by clubs

but riot gear is heavy, expensive and has crap armor stats.

Better than default Flak.

And you're wrong. It reduces a lot. I tested it in the other cry about clubs thread by Crows.

[PuffyPony]

14 minutes ago, Jostabeere said:

Better than default Flak.

And you're wrong. It reduces a lot. I tested it in the other cry about clubs thread by Crows.

Flak gives no protection against clubs. Riot does provide a pretty significant Torpor reduction, but when you consider that nothing, not even high Fortitude values, really gives a substantial amount of protection against clubs prior to level 80, then yeah, clubs are OP (and you don't need an Ascendant Club to bonk people unconscious in mere seconds). Sure, you can max your Torpor, but it doesn't help that much, and that means you're drawing away points from other valuable stats (HP, Melee, Speed). You could spam Stimulants, but that means you're not attacking, and Stim can't really keep up anyway.

[Goaty]

You could use electric prods to counter clubs, but it's annoying how they have no durability. I do agree clubd need some sort of nerf

[BulletForce]

1 minute ago, PuffyPony said:

Flak gives no protection against clubs. Riot does provide a pretty significant Torpor reduction, but when you consider that nothing, not even high Fortitude values, really gives a substantial amount of protection against clubs prior to level 80, then yeah, clubs are OP (and you don't need an Ascendant Club to bonk people unconscious in mere seconds). Sure, you can max your Torpor, but it doesn't help that much, and that means you're drawing away points from other valuable stats (HP, Melee, Speed). You could spam Stimulants, but that means you're not attacking, and Stim can't really keep up anyway.

Well said PuffyPony. The whole idea though that a player needs to be wearing expensive level 80 gear to counter a level 8 item that costs 4 wood and 15 fiber is beyond ridiculous and even then as you said its far from foolproof. The devs need to just scale torpor from clubs with that of your armor in the same way damage works. That would be fair and balanced. If it works for every other weapon why not apply it to clubs as well?

Also stimulants are completely useless vs clubs since they apply instant torpor which is another balance issue with them. If they applied over time like most other stuff they wouldn't be as OP as currently are as there would be viable counters to it. 

 

[Crows]

Yep, 100% agree with everything you've said here. Clubs are OP and always will be by the looks of things. Even I (who hates them) is resorting to using them to combat other people with clubs now instead of my ascendant shotgun/longneck because by the time I break through their armor with my shotty, their club has K.O'd me in 1-2 hits, even with 30 fortitude. 

[Harrist14]

4 hours ago, BulletForce said:

So I need to be level 80 to unlock a form of expensive armor that might offer some additional protection against a weapon that is ultra cheap and unlocked at level 8?

Yep that is balance. 

It isn't even just level 80 now. Patch 257 raised riot gear to level 98. 

[BulletForce]

2 minutes ago, Crows said:

Yep, 100% agree with everything you've said here. Clubs are OP and always will be by the looks of things. Even I (who hates them) is resorting to using them to combat other people with clubs now instead of my ascendant shotgun/longneck because by the time I break through their armor with my shotty, their club has K.O'd me in 1-2 hits, even with 30 fortitude. 

I'm in the same boat. Until a week ago I was still using my 1000 ingot Ascendent sword but even with with its high damage I was finding that in a lot of straight up head to head melee fights I was getting almost instantly KOed by clubs before I could even do decent damage and half the time they weren't even good clubs just the primitive ones.

I had a close call the other day. A naked player came running straight at me with a club I drew mu sword and we both began swinging and what do you know I get KOed on the second hit and he lives. Luckily my buddy came to my rescue but since then I've come to conclusion its simply not worth the risk trying to use any other melee weapon. A club user only has to land one hit on you, while I still need to land 4-5+ with my Ascendant sword depending on their armor.

 

As such I've decided to permanently ditch the sword for the club .I now only use it to kill wild dinos. My 250% ascendant club is all I need these days. It costs 350 something wood and I can pump out 50 of em in one good Therizino run. That sure is a lot cheaper then my 1000 ingot sword...

[BulletForce]

2 minutes ago, Harrist14 said:

It isn't even just level 80 now. Patch 257 raised riot gear to level 98. 

It gets even better. Level 98 to counter a level 8 item. I'm sure Jostabeere will tell you that's perfectly balanced though haha. 

[ItsCap]

If you can't beat it join it abuse clubs while you still can wildcard don't seem like they're doing anything about it if a naked guy ran up to u with a club pull out a club of your own or pull out a good shotty and kill him or don't where any valuables on at all when trolls come onto official servers they spawn in naked make a club and start whacking the only way to combat that is to make a primitive club of ur own go naked and fight him he's gets nothing if you knock him  out you can keep him knocked out cage him and prevent him from doing anything with that character. Wildcard are completely overlooking the fact that raiding is running around naked after you blow up someone's base even defensive tactics are running around naked and club in hand 

I 100% agree with you that the clubs are broken but if they needed it people will still run around gas mask and poison bases or wyv in defense or offense the knock out mechanic on players are stupid 200 torpor but knock out completely at 50 NICE ONE WILDCARD. 

[Jostabeere]

39 minutes ago, BulletForce said:

It gets even better. Level 98 to counter a level 8 item. I'm sure Jostabeere will tell you that's perfectly balanced though haha. 

You should watch what you claim me to say.

I never said that the mechanic doesn't need a rework. I only said that there are ways to counter the mechanic people claim to be overpowered.

Overpowered means there is no way to counter it, as it is the most powerful thing. And that's a big, fat lie.

Another thing that people who cry about clubs seem to forget that it's not only clubs. Fist are almost en par with clubs and you do not need to be level 8. If you spend 4 points in melee damage, you need the same amount of hits to get someone unconcious as if you would use a primitive club.

The whole torpor mechanic needs a rework, and armors need a rework with different resistances against clubs.

But claiming clubs are overpowered, and by that means the strongest weapon you could have in the game, is objectively wrong.

P.S. And I get really mad when people put words in my mouth. Consider not doing it again. Thanks.

[Brayn]

Pump action shotgun or bolas plus flame arrow to follow counters clubs, but not in any meaningful sort of way.

Fortitude should raise your torpor 10 torpor per point.  It should reduce torpor gain by a percentage per application of torpor in addition to it's increased torpor drain affect.

Lastly and most obviously, you shouldn't get KO'd until your torpor is full.

[PuffyPony]

31 minutes ago, Jostabeere said:

You should watch what you claim me to say.

I never said that the mechanic doesn't need a rework. I only said that there are ways to counter the mechanic people claim to be overpowered.

Overpowered means there is no way to counter it, as it is the most powerful thing. And that's a big, fat lie.

Another thing that people who cry about clubs seem to forget that it's not only clubs. Fist are almost en par with clubs and you do not need to be level 8. If you spend 4 points in melee damage, you need the same amount of hits to get someone unconcious as if you would use a primitive club.

The whole torpor mechanic needs a rework, and armors need a rework with different resistances against clubs.

But claiming clubs are overpowered, and by that means the strongest weapon you could have in the game, is objectively wrong.

P.S. And I get really mad when people put words in my mouth. Consider not doing it again. Thanks.

To be fair, considering that there is no objectively good counter for clubs until level 98 (or 80, assuming that's still the level to unlock Deep Sea Loot Crates), then Clubs are OP. Do you consider the TEK Rifle OP, because it's one of the strongest weapons in the game? The answer if you're logically consistent here is yes, but I think that if you're going to be completely fair, the answer is no because it's a very high level item and has significant costs in terms of upfront investment and long-term ammo/repair. The reason we're saying clubs are so OP is that they cost so few resources, unlock at a low level, and have no real meaningful counter until very, very high levels. Fists are not nearly as bad because they're affected by armor.

But I do agree that weapons/torpor/armor need a general rework.

[SmokeyB]

But it's fun when everyone is running around clubbing each other. 

[D90]

Agree with all the comments, they definitely need a nerf against certain armour, if not just to make the other wepons more usefull. 

On the other hand it's so much fun running about smashing people in with it. It's a daily occurance to club or be clubbed by a tribe member. 

I will carry on clubbing no matter what.

[Marked]

X>Y plz nerf is an extremely poor and narrow sighted way to look at balance.

Currently clubs act as the Achilles heel to the best armour in the game. flak currently weighting only 2.5 for full set and providing the cheapest form of end game protection is only flawed by its lack of torpor protection. Riot on the other hand is most under-powdered of end game armour providing a small increase in protection against direct damage and protect against blunt torpor in exchange for more than 15 times the weight of flak and higher tier bps costing around 2.5k poly for a Asc chest piece vs 400 ingots for asc flak. 

Without clubs riot armour is completely worthless in comparison flak which is the most efficient damage protection from lvl45 up to ultra high end ghillie.

 

[geneticbits]

9 hours ago, BobRoss said:

Make it break armor first and only afterwards damage torpor.

my suggestion:

Chitin and below = 1 hit to break a piece.

prim flak/ramshackle/apprentice= 2 hits for a piece for a prim/ramshackle/apprentice club and 1 hit for JM or above.

JM=3 hits for prim/ram/app/JM club, 2 for MC club and 1 for asc club

MC= 4 hits for prim/ram club 3 for JM club 2 for MC club and 1 for asc club

ASC= 5 hits for prim/ram club 4 for JM club 3 for MC club and 2 for asc club.

RIOT should take atleast 10 hits at prim vs prim and more depending on the quality or the armor.

 

I'm not saying this is the way to go, but if/when these get nerfed/balanced - PLEASE have it be along the lines of this. I'm not making any suggestions because I only play PVE, but in PVE clubs are fine as they are. I haven't seen anyone (of a higher level anyway) running around with clubs and beating dinos unless they're penguins, dodos or jerboas. From what I've read in OP, there does need to be a rework for PVP play. But since that mechanic doesn't exist in PVE, please don't nerf them to the point that it will take 20 swings of an ASC club to KO a lv 20 dodo...