[Suggestion] More artistic for weapons...

[Meitnerium]

Hello everyone, it's me again,

I'm sure everyone at least swung over 10 swords ingame. Each other experienced that qualities are really wonderful and give a nice handy feeling - Though, do you think that a wooden sword is much stronger than a golden,excellent-smithed,wonder saber like Napoleons (doesn't exist ingame,of course =P)? Oh and Napoleons weapon looks really awesome if you ask me (If you don't believe me,go to <a href="http://xmb.stuffucanuse.com/xmb/viewthread.php?tid=4048" target="_blank">http://xmb.stuffucanuse.com/xmb/viewthread.php?tid=4048</a>)


Anyway. Now to the real topic. I'm trying to tell you that swords,axes,special melee-weapons in current Alpha 9 versions are really confusing and sabotaging the balance system. Have you ever mentioned that you died very quickly because of NPCs with Shamshir weapon of 45-60 DPS? Your wonderful Sovereign Sword may even not be a match for it. And did you know, that you can get Shamshir in the early-levels? Furthermore did you notice that this weapon is EXTREM cheap? >.<

Anyway. I think that some fixed and updates are needed for the weapon system because it confuses the whole combat system,as well as the difference between cheap and expensive weapons. I'm not sure about ranged weapons but I do not really need to say anything bad about them. Strikethrough and Block do not help a lot. I think that DPS is much better than these both stats because your target dies more quickly.

I worried about this disequilibrium and have some ideas now,how to improve it. Lovely Administrators, you can either occupy this or not, because it's just a opinion and I think it would be better so.

Anyway...1st suggestion which is easily managable:
- Change Level Restrictions for weapons and change their DPS so everyone can see that you can access better weapons when you go one level up - Not that you can just get more cash crops from enemies
- Lower their DPS if you want because sometimes it doesn't even take 4 hits till death. But if you make Strikethrough and Block more useful, then this fact wouldn't matter anymore.

2nd suggestion which is a bit complicated:
- Change all weapons and sort them.
e.g.
- Battle Axes: Slow attacks,bad block but high DPS and high strikethrough
- Swords: fast attacks,medium Block,medium strikethrough and bad DPS
- 2-hand swords: slow attacks, no block, high DPS and very high strikethrough
- Halberd: medium attacks, high block, low DPS and medium strikethrough

3nd suggest which is complicated:
- Add new stats for weapons which can be defined as,...
-> ...Strength = DPS,block
-> ...Agility = better dodge and faster movements
-> ...Precision = to-hit chance, strikethrough
-> ...Luck = crit. hit chance
-> ...Constitution = health
-> ...Stamina = speed.attack

That's it for now

Meitnerium (Need a break now)

 

[GreySaber]

I think I can safely tell you, for most of your ideas, without even being one of the programmers, Not a chance.

We have axes because they could put them in using sword animation. We have muskets because they could...sorta...use pistol animation.

If we were to get some new type of weapon, like a two handed sword, it would involve... animation.

Now, was they to agree to doing alot of it, I'd be rooting all over for a musket with a fixed bayonette that didn't mount like a pistol!

But basically all the new weapons.... are really just like the old ones from an animation standpoint.


BTW, as a guy who fences the German Longsword, there is no reason you can't block with a two hander. Best thing to do though is to use attacks with opposition where you block AND hit with the same movement.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

All the item values are defined in PROGRAM\ITEMS\initItems.c so most of what you would propose could be done in that file alone.
We had an experimental weapons system that attempted to rectify many of the issues people had with the current system,
but that ended up making things worse.

Hook has done improving of the blockdamage (pierce/block values) code and he would very much like some comments on that, as far as I'm aware.
He posted the following in the POTC Modding forum that might be interesting to you:<!--quoteo(post=308813:date=Mar 26 2009, 12:47 PM:name=Hook)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Hook @ Mar 26 2009, 12:47 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=308813"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I've spent a few hours crunching numbers for the blade damage in a spreadsheet and have come up with some formulas to determine reasonable numbers for blades.

minLevel:

Add the minDamage + maamage + Pierce + Block to determine the SumOfStats. A good value for minLevel for that blade is (SumOfStats - 40) / 8. If used as minLevel, round it to the nearest integer. In the price calculation, use the fractional number.

You will need at least 4 blades with a minLevel of 0 or 1 for starting characters. That means fairly low stats.

Balancing:

(minDamge + maamage) / (Pierce + Block) should be in the range 0.25 to 4.00, with very few blades at the extremes of that range.

The highest of the four stat numbers should be certainly no more than 10 times the lowest non-zero number. Only one blade in the stock game was that high, another was 6 times, the rest were 4 or below.

Price:

500 + half the calculated minLevel (will be a float, round to the nearest integer) times 500, and add 20% for each minLevel over 5. Set the dagger lower, maybe some SWAK weapons as well. A level 10 weapon would cost 6000, a level 15 weapon 13500.

Some examples:

Asiatic Broadsword, 109 stat points, minLevel 9, price 4500. minLevel 11 in the game.
French Admiralty Rapier, 146 stat points, minLevel 13, price 10400. It's minLevel 11 in the game.
Bosun's Choice, 205 stat points, minLevel 21, price 23100. It has minLevel 15 in the game.
Atwood F100, highest sword in the game, 229 stat points, minLevel 24, price 31200.

I'd recommend not messing with the existing numbers, but this should give you a good handle on what to do with new blades as they're added.

Hook<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

 

[LarryHookins]

Where the hell is a shamshir with 45-60 damage coming from? That's insane. That's NOT in the items init. I'm going to guess here that it's a blade that's been raised in quality. I don't use that mod, and this is just another good reason why.

I got a sword as a promotion award recently. It has 100 pierce, 20 block. Sounds good, doesn't it? The damage is 10 to 20. I'm facing enemies with 300 hit points here. No thank you, I'll keep my much higher damage sword that has only about 50 for pierce and block. To be honest, I wouldn't give that Corsair's Pride to any character above level 3. By the time you've whittled down your enemy's hit points, he's cut you down even more.

Meitnerium, I'd dearly love to make piercing and blocking more important, but I'm not allowed to. It's as simple as that. If I did, then the player could block all he wanted and never get hit. The problem was even worse before I got involved in fixing it. Players were getting killed in one hit while blocking. Frequently. With a sword with 95 block on it.

Hook

 

[LarryHookins]

As far as I know, the only way to make a weapon strike faster or more often is to raise the fencing skill. There's a time attribute on a couple of weapons, but I haven't seen any effect from it. We could lower the fencing skill to make a weapon strike slower and less often. These skill changes don't need to be displayed to the player, as they don't really change anything but the weapon speed, and they can be set up so they're only used to determine speed.

I'd have to look at the code again, but I think the luck skill is already used.

Hook

 

[Pieter Boelen]

<!--quoteo(post=316388:date=Apr 28 2009, 10:34 PM:name=Hook)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Hook @ Apr 28 2009, 10:34 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=316388"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Where the hell is a shamshir with 45-60 damage coming from? That's insane. That's NOT in the items init. I'm going to guess here that it's a blade that's been raised in quality. I don't use that mod, and this is just another good reason why.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->I also recall the really-good Shamshirs. If the weaponsmod increases the item's stats that much though, then the quality effect is overpowered.
It is indeed excessive, but I'm hoping we can do something about that without requiring to turn the weaponsmod off. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/unsure.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":?" border="0" alt="unsure.gif" />

<!--quoteo(post=316388:date=Apr 28 2009, 10:34 PM:name=Hook)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Hook @ Apr 28 2009, 10:34 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=316388"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Meitnerium, I'd dearly love to make piercing and blocking more important, but I'm not allowed to. It's as simple as that. If I did, then the player could block all he wanted and never get hit.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->But if the enemy would have a blade with a high pierce value, you <i>could</i> be hit, right?
I mean if the pierce and block values have a bigger impact, that would actually increase the importance of getting a blade with a good block value if you don't want to be hit.
And if you'd have a blade with a low block value, you certainly couldn't do infinite blocking.
Or am I misunderstanding something again? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mybad.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="mybad.gif" />

 

[LarryHookins]

<!--quoteo(post=316453:date=Apr 29 2009, 02:08 AM:name=Pieter Boelen)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Pieter Boelen @ Apr 29 2009, 02:08 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=316453"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->But if the enemy would have a blade with a high pierce value, you <i>could</i> be hit, right?
I mean if the pierce and block values have a bigger impact, that would actually increase the importance of getting a blade with a good block value if you don't want to be hit.
And if you'd have a blade with a low block value, you certainly couldn't do infinite blocking.
Or am I misunderstanding something again? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mybad.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="mybad.gif" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is exactly how it worked before we changed it.

Hook

 

[Pieter Boelen]

But then why did we ever experience that "infinite blocking syndrome"? Agh... I'm confused. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wacko.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":wacko:" border="0" alt="wacko.gif" />

 

[LarryHookins]

The original code gave a very low chance of pierce. The highest I've got recorded is 17%. It's almost always under 5%. I can put considerable more bite into the piercing/blocking ratio, but if a character has a high block sword he'll almost never get pierced. However, with a lower block sword against a higher pierce sword, he'll almost always get pierced. It may take some time to come up with a proper calculation that makes the pierce/block as important as the damage. Just keep in mind that if I have an 85% block sword, I can block all day.

Hook