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BioWare Forums  Forum Archives Old Dragon Age Forums Dragon Age (Old) Weapon differences
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Pistolized
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 Posted: Monday, 29 January 2007 04:10AM |
In lot's of rpg's there are lots of different weapons but not many reasons to choose anything but the best ones. Too many weapons are differentiated by 1 or 2 points of damage or a small increase in critical chance. It seems to me that there should be more defining attributes to make up for different and weak weapons. Like every great hammer has an innate chance to knock down, or something. You know what I mean?
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Gecon
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Posted: Monday, 29 January 2007 08:09AM |
Thats a thing I liked about Lineage 2, there where the following weapon types:
- Onehanded Sword - Bleed, useable with Shield
- Twohanded Sword - High damage (seldom)
- Dual Sword - High damage, needs two onehanded swords to create
- Onehanded Blunt - Stun, useable with Shield
- Twohanded Blunt - Stun, high damage (very seldom)
- Dagger - Criticals, Fast Speed, Backstab
- Fist Weapon - Fast Speed, Good Accurancy, Stun, Cripple
- Polearm - Attack multiple enemies
- Bow - Ranged
- Mage Weapon (Sword, Staff, Book, Doll etc)
And each of them had its uses.
The bad thing was of course, you couldn't use all these weapons on one character. Most warrior classes only could use one specific weapon type. The only real exception was the Orc Destroyer, who could use Swords and Blunts, Twohanded (only warrior who got special skills for those) and Polearm (second warrior who got special skills for those).
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Randalish
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Posted: Monday, 29 January 2007 11:09AM |
Hmm. A bit weird, those.
I'd like slightly more realistic differences. For example, maces and warhammer would be better against armoured foes. A spear would have long reach which could be a major advantage in holding off a charging monster. (think boar hunt) An axe causes a lot of damage against almost anything, but is harder to control and recover. A sword has a reach advantage over maces and axes, and is superior in close quarter fighting to a spear. Can also be used to cut and thrust which makes it a very good all-round weapon. A two-handed sword has better reach and damage, but can't be used for long lunges, and is more unwieldy up close.
Something like that would be a lot cooler than all kinds of weird special abilities like hitting multiple enemies.
What you'd need to implement this is a reach system, with weapons more or less effective based upon the distance between you and the foe, and where warriors try to close to optimum reach whilst the other tries to keep them away, and a weapon with a better reach could get an extra hit or two in, and a spear would be pretty useless if an enemy manages to close in enough.
You'd also need an armour system that makes sense and differentiates between weapons attacking it.
I think something like this would make fighting ravaging monsters much cooler, as it'd be something different to fighting a soldier. When fighting another humanoid, you attack, parry, circle around eachother, try to get in optimal range to attack.
But monsters armed with nothing but teeth and claw just charge at you in a blood maddened rage to zero range where your weapons are hardly effective at all. If a monster manages to get past your weapon, he bowls you into the ground and claws at you up close, leaving you with no choice but grab a dagger and try to finish it off before it gets through your armour. You'd probably need to rely on the party to pull through, with the others trying to finish the beast without hitting their friend, or pulling it off.
Wouldn't that be tons cooler than "monster rolls to hit, scores 30 damage"? It would make a monster feel like a monster.
You could also play more interesting types of warriors. A spear-fighter who stays at the edges of combat and jabs at exposed foes, keeping them always at arms length. Someone who charges straight in close and personal with an axe or a mace. A specialist who is brilliant with one weapon would be at a disadvantage when caught in a position where his weapon wouldn't help. Indoors, different weapons would be good than outdoors as there's less room to manoeuvre and make use of your reach.
Of course, this probably is whistful thinking, but I do think such a more realistic feeling approach would make combat feel much more visceral and exiting than a game-based approach with arbitrary special abilities and special attacks. | |
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Gecon
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Posted: Monday, 29 January 2007 01:58PM |
Quote: I'd like slightly more realistic differences.
Except that we don't know for sure what really is realistic, its all a big guesswork, and to most of the stuff you posted I wouldn't even agree. A sword doesn't really have a better reach than a Waraxe, for example. On the contrary, you usually try to hit with a sword near to the hilt, because there the blade is blunt and strong, while if you hit with the point, this part is weak; the weapon might break.
And besides, the point of a fight system is not being realistic, but being fun.
And realism - how exactly do you want to fight a dragon if your battle system is realistic ? Without using rocket lauchers, strike fighters, and atom bombs.
Quote: Something like that would be a lot cooler than all kinds of weird special abilities like hitting multiple enemies.
Except that that is not weird, quite on the contrary, its realistic that you have to battle multiple foes and a typical task for an elite warrior such as a mediveal knight, or a samurai.
Quote: Wouldn't that be tons cooler than "monster rolls to hit, scores 30 damage"?
I don't think we'll see the good old hitpoints vanish too soon.
1. Players like to get *FEEDBACK* if they're losing or not. In a realistic system, you lose or win very fast - a single hit might slit your throat as well as the ateries next to it.
2. Its simple. Anything not based on hitpoints is usually quite complicated, but not really better.
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wanderingswordsman
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Posted: Monday, 29 January 2007 02:36PM |
I'd prefer a system where weapons get bonuses to certain abilities. eg: you can use a sunder armour ability with all weapons but a mace or hammer might give a significant bonus to that ability. All weapons can use a shield break ability, but the axe might get a bonus. Perhaps weapons could also recieve penalties for certain abilities as well. Swords should be the most balanced weapons across most abilites(having no significant bonuses yet having now significant penalties either).
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Allen63
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Posted: Monday, 29 January 2007 03:05PM |
DA will be rule based combat and the actual strikes and outcomes will be calculated with "die rolls" (effectively speaking).
Consequently, during the fight, the player will have only a secondary or tertiary role in the outcome.
However, before the fight, a big part of the fun is equipping the right weapon for the job. In that sense, I too would like to see the weapons differentiated and the game AI and game rules adjusted to make the outcomes "feel right" (i.e. feel genuinely realistic in a fantasy way). That is, for example, a mace is more effective than a sword against most metal armor (as suggested above) -- and arrows can be stopped with thick cloth armor, for example.
FWIW, Oblivion does a pretty good job of differentiating among weapons by speed, reach, damage -- then, fantasy "enchantments" are stacked on top of the basically realistic parameters. Modders can change those values to what seems real to them. Unfortunately, many modders change things to be less genuinely real because many have misconceptions about what "real" really is. So, for example, Bioware would need to have an expert consultant to really get the weapons where I would like to see them (always remembering it is FANTASY).
But, based on their posts, Bioware has already developed the rules and combat system. So, now its just a matter of waiting to see what they have done.Edited By Allen63 on 01/29/07 15:11 | |
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Autumn Bard
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Posted: Monday, 29 January 2007 03:36PM |
Randalish, methinks you're onto something. i agree arbitrarily assigning special features to weapons as a means of differentiating between them is a bit lacking. As is the currently used combat system as a whole (too basic/generic) as you mentioned.
Guess i should take it back a few steps. Realism doesn't necessarily mean not fun. To me, more realism in the combat system and engaging in combat when it makes sense to as opposed to combat being used as a leveling up device, would make it so much better and more fun. i find the hack'n'slash combat style gets tedious and pointless. It often takes away from the story because alot of the reasoning for engaging in combat is questionable, and at times, irrational. With more realism comes more strategem and putting weapon differences to use. It helps alter combat being people facing eachother and hacking away into a more dynamic system.
Implementing reach parameters is a good idea. i can't help but find it strange, and at times, annoying how a big baddy wielding a monster-huge Greatsword of Doom can hit people in too close reach with massive swings. It is illogical. While some prefer it that way and i do respect that, i prefer something different.
Having weapons and armour able to differentiate what they are hitting/being hit by is also a good idea. Different weapon and armour types were designed for different purposes. Chain mail doesn't provide the same function as plate, nor does a rapier work the way a mace does. So rather than adding feats/abilities to weapons, reflecting realism might serve better: rapiers pierce and are effective against armour that has segments with areas lacking cover, whereas plate repels blades but is more vulnerable to hurting the armour wearer when whacked with a blunt weapon. So that would be expressed as a percentage or ratio of some sort. ie: plate +.3 (30%) vs slashing/piercing and -.4 (40%) vs blunt. (i'm not well versed in the specifics of armour and weapons so i may be off with the plate and chain details.)
Obviously there are many different levels of realism and too realistic would be very difficult to implement - how would one realistically depict shock, dizziness, bruising, muscle weakness/fatigue etc? Yes there are stat reductions but they don't really affect the player (at least not really meaningfully so far) and thus become an annoyance rather than adding to the depth of gameplay. But i think there can be a good balance between realism and the basic d20 based combat system currently used.
EDIT: And what Allen63 said too!
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Planetus
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Posted: Monday, 29 January 2007 05:51PM |
How about different weapons have different special abilities. For example, axes can have cleave abilities to break armor or shields, swords can have parrying/multiple damage types (slashing and piercing), spears can have a chance of keeping the enemy at a distance, blunt weapons should to little damage as a base, but have a high chance of inflicting status effects like disarm, stun, slow (hit the leg), and large criticals.
On that last one, basically, blunt weapons were rarely used to actually kill someone, but rather to disable them. Unless you get a lucky hit to the head, you aren't going to kill someone with a mace, even out of armor, but even in plate armor, a mace can break bones and shatter wrists.
Exactly what gets what is up to the devs, but I'd love to see maces work that way. | |
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Randalish
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Posted: Monday, 29 January 2007 06:14PM |
Quote: Posted 01/29/07 13:58 (GMT) by Gecon Quote: I'd like slightly more realistic differences.
Except that we don't know for sure what really is realistic, its all a big guesswork
Oh, I'm quite aware of that. That wasn't the point. It's stuff like "swords sometimes randomly inflict extra damage" and "only one-handed swords make you bleed" is so very incredibly unrealistic. It detracts from the game for me.
A system like I described that differentiates by reach and effectiveness against certain types of armour is a lot more realistic. The actual properties you assign are still guesswork to some extent, true. The examples I mentioned were mostly made up on the spot and are probably highly inaccurate. But anyway, I prefer an approximation of realistic fighting to cartoony systems like the one you described.
Quote: And besides, the point of a fight system is not being realistic, but being fun.
The one does not exclude the other. A system that appears somewhat realistic is much more involving for me than a Final Fantasy type system. (to take an extreme example)
Quote: And realism - how exactly do you want to fight a dragon if your battle system is realistic ? Without using rocket lauchers, strike fighters, and atom bombs.
With magic, of course. And tactics. Dragons aren't realistic anyway, so the setting also allows for preternaturally skilled and fast heroes.
A dragon fight would be much cooler if the fighter had to roll away under the beasts legs when it charges him, and strike at the flanks as it is trying to turn its cumbersome bulk. Getting hit by the beast could send the fighter flying all over the room. (as opposed to standing and hacking like in NWN1) For the sake of fun, getting smashed to the other side of the room still wouldn't disable the fighter. He'd get back up and have another go.
A fight that looks believable would be much more fun, where I am concerned.
Quote: Quote: Something like that would be a lot cooler than all kinds of weird special abilities like hitting multiple enemies.
Except that that is not weird, quite on the contrary, its realistic that you have to battle multiple foes and a typical task for an elite warrior such as a mediveal knight, or a samurai.
I took your description to mean that an attack with a polearm in Lineage could hit multiple foes with one swing, which would be rather silly. Of course you should be able to fight multiple enemies.
And note that I am NOT advocating abolishing hitpoints. Hitpoints work, your arguments in favour of them are quite right.
I simply think it'd be cool if a system with weapon reach playing a bigger role and monsters fight differently than humans was added to a normal "attack, reduce hitpoint" system. (to keep things simple)
My problem is that in most RPGs, two combatants stand next to eachother, and swing weapons at eachother, be they goblins or humans or wolves or dragons. It's not very interesting.
Making warriors manoeuvre in a fight would do much more to spice up combat than giving weapons weird special abilities to differentiate them.Edited By Randalish on 01/29/07 18:15 | |
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Planetus
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Posted: Monday, 29 January 2007 08:00PM | |
How do I expect my 6'2" barbarian fighter to fight a 40' dragon? Easy, you hamstring it. That's the kind of thing I would like to see. I want to break its kneecaps or hamstring it so it can't stand. Then I want the spearman next to me to stab his 12' pike into its chest trying to hit the heart. In the mean time, my barbarian can climb on his back and attack the spine, or try to disembowel it, or try to hit a major blood vessel. That's the kind of combat I want to see. Only with magic, too. But magic is usually done rather well in this respect. | |
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The Wild Turkey
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Posted: Monday, 29 January 2007 10:35PM |
Quote: Posted 01/29/07 13:58 (GMT) by Gecon Quote: I'd like slightly more realistic differences.
Except that we don't know for sure what really is realistic, its all a big guesswork, and to most of the stuff you posted I wouldn't even agree. A sword doesn't really have a better reach than a Waraxe, for example. On the contrary, you usually try to hit with a sword near to the hilt, because there the blade is blunt and strong, while if you hit with the point, this part is weak; the weapon might break.
Incorrect. When parrying and blocking, you use the bottom of the blade (called the forte) because it is strongest and you get the maximum leverage there (not because of any inherent strength of the blade), but when striking at your opponent, you try to hit with the part near the point (called the foible) because that's where it's sharpest and you have the maximum momentum. Weapon breakage is never a factor unless you're using the cheapest and crappiest blade you can find.
And we do actually know a fair bit about sword fighting from the various manuals left behind by the masters. They didn't cover everything and a lot is open to interpretation, but the WMA community is doing it's best to recreate the art as the master wrote about it.
Quote: And besides, the point of a fight system is not being realistic, but being fun.
And realism - how exactly do you want to fight a dragon if your battle system is realistic ? Without using rocket lauchers, strike fighters, and atom bombs.
Quite definitely any system the devs develop has to be fun, but I don't think that automatically excludes an extent of realism. For me the fun part of swordfighting is the attack-parry-riposte and tactically thinking ahead to create an opportunity to strike at your opponent.
Quote: Something like that would be a lot cooler than all kinds of weird special abilities like hitting multiple enemies.
Except that that is not weird, quite on the contrary, its realistic that you have to battle multiple foes and a typical task for an elite warrior such as a mediveal knight, or a samurai.
I quite agree that an elite warrior should be expected to take on several opponents at the same time. Preferably I'd like to see that as a feat or equivalent that the character attains at a sufficiently high level. Perhaps some magical weapons could offer a bonus to that feat?
Quote: Wouldn't that be tons cooler than "monster rolls to hit, scores 30 damage"?
I don't think we'll see the good old hitpoints vanish too soon.
1. Players like to get *FEEDBACK* if they're losing or not. In a realistic system, you lose or win very fast - a single hit might slit your throat as well as the ateries next to it.
2. Its simple. Anything not based on hitpoints is usually quite complicated, but not really better.(/quote)
I tend to agree that we'll see the hitpoints stay for a while in gaming, at least until someone comes up with something not quite as abstract but offering the same benefits. | |
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The Coordinator
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Posted: Tuesday, 30 January 2007 01:21AM | |
@ Gecon: your weapos have stun too often. stun only if you damage someones spine with a very hard punch or stab/cut. and slow only if hit by frost attack, or ability drain(poison/lvel drain) IŽd say. | |
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chad878262
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Posted: Tuesday, 30 January 2007 03:54AM |
Couple of things...
First, regarding hit points, health or whatever else is used to measure how many "hits" you can sustain... When I played PnP games my DM always said that any character only really has 4-10 real hit points... As was stated, one well placed strike with a dagger would kill just about anyone. However, the higher level characters gain a combination of skill, quickness in battle and a kind of sixth sense that make them better able to avoid critical blows. In this sense having 100 hit points doesn't mean that your high level character can take 10 good whacks from an enemy, it means he/she is better able to turn those hits in to glancing blows or misses. Looking at it this way makes a heck of a lot more sense and supports any system where characters gain hit points.
Second point is just my 2 cents on different weapons. I love the idea and, considering how many calculations can be done instantly by a computer it seems that the only limit is how much time the devs want to spend on it. Back in the 1st addition of AD&D the rule book had an entire section where it went through different THAC0 for each weapon against each armor type. Way too complicated which is why they did away with it in the 2nd addition. With a computer though, there is no reason why they can't have as many modifyers as they want to spend time on or that makes the game fun. In addition to weapons vs. specific armor types, there could be adjustments based on fighting styles vs. other styles, different races, or any other number of things. Certainly I don't advocate making it so difficult and complicated that your warriors are walking around with a dozen different weapons, that takes the fun out of it. However, I see no reason why any warrior worth his salt wouldn't carry around a couple of secondary weapon choices and maybe a dagger in the belt in case of emergencies.
Here is a few ideas on what I think could differenciate between weapons:
1.) Smaller weapons should get to attack faster. The reason the rapier overtook the claymore is that you could poke the guy with the claymore three times before he could get the sword around on you.
2.) Weapons of 2 or more sizes smaller should take penalties against the larger weapon. Much like the reach of a boxer, it should be rather difficult to fight a guy with a long sword if you have a dagger, but there shouldn't be too much of an affect for a dagger against a short sword.
3.) Heavy weapons should have lower accuracy. High strength would eliminate this a little, but it's still hard to adjust your swing with a maul, whereas changing swing direction with a hand axe is much less difficult.
3a.) Heavy weapons should have higher chance for critical, not lower. While they should hit less often, when they do, they should pack a punch, and they have a better chance of really causing some pain. I also think that any "cleave" like ability (or at least great cleave) should only be available to these types of weapons as I don't see how someone can generate enough power with a one handed weapon.
4.) Criticals should be more interesting than double damage. This is where a hammer could have a chance to knock someone out or down or stun (whatever). Blades could cause bleeding over several seconds or work like called shot leg/arm. Flails or other weapons with chains could have a disarm effect, etc...
Just some ideas because this thread seems really interesting, but I'm sure the devs can come up with a lot better ways to work weapons in there system than I can, thanks for reading my exceedingly long thread, I'm long winded, can't help it... | |
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DrunkenMagicianNL
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Posted: Tuesday, 30 January 2007 01:03PM |
Quote: Posted 01/30/07 03:54 (GMT) by chad878262
Couple of things...
First, regarding hit points, health or whatever else is used to measure how many "hits" you can sustain... When I played PnP games my DM always said that any character only really has 4-10 real hit points... As was stated, one well placed strike with a dagger would kill just about anyone. However, the higher level characters gain a combination of skill, quickness in battle and a kind of sixth sense that make them better able to avoid critical blows. In this sense having 100 hit points doesn't mean that your high level character can take 10 good whacks from an enemy, it means he/she is better able to turn those hits in to glancing blows or misses. Looking at it this way makes a heck of a lot more sense and supports any system where characters gain hit points.
Second point is just my 2 cents on different weapons. I love the idea and, considering how many calculations can be done instantly by a computer it seems that the only limit is how much time the devs want to spend on it. Back in the 1st addition of AD&D the rule book had an entire section where it went through different THAC0 for each weapon against each armor type. Way too complicated which is why they did away with it in the 2nd addition. With a computer though, there is no reason why they can't have as many modifyers as they want to spend time on or that makes the game fun. In addition to weapons vs. specific armor types, there could be adjustments based on fighting styles vs. other styles, different races, or any other number of things. Certainly I don't advocate making it so difficult and complicated that your warriors are walking around with a dozen different weapons, that takes the fun out of it. However, I see no reason why any warrior worth his salt wouldn't carry around a couple of secondary weapon choices and maybe a dagger in the belt in case of emergencies.
Here is a few ideas on what I think could differenciate between weapons:
1.) Smaller weapons should get to attack faster. The reason the rapier overtook the claymore is that you could poke the guy with the claymore three times before he could get the sword around on you.
2.) Weapons of 2 or more sizes smaller should take penalties against the larger weapon. Much like the reach of a boxer, it should be rather difficult to fight a guy with a long sword if you have a dagger, but there shouldn't be too much of an affect for a dagger against a short sword.
3.) Heavy weapons should have lower accuracy. High strength would eliminate this a little, but it's still hard to adjust your swing with a maul, whereas changing swing direction with a hand axe is much less difficult.
3a.) Heavy weapons should have higher chance for critical, not lower. While they should hit less often, when they do, they should pack a punch, and they have a better chance of really causing some pain. I also think that any "cleave" like ability (or at least great cleave) should only be available to these types of weapons as I don't see how someone can generate enough power with a one handed weapon.
4.) Criticals should be more interesting than double damage. This is where a hammer could have a chance to knock someone out or down or stun (whatever). Blades could cause bleeding over several seconds or work like called shot leg/arm. Flails or other weapons with chains could have a disarm effect, etc...
Just some ideas because this thread seems really interesting, but I'm sure the devs can come up with a lot better ways to work weapons in there system than I can, thanks for reading my exceedingly long thread, I'm long winded, can't help it...
I agree on all, except on point 3a. I think heavy weapons should be slower, AND should cause massive damage every time it hits someone. But it is less accurate, and therefor the chances of causing a critical must be lower. | |
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Randalish
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Posted: Tuesday, 30 January 2007 01:52PM |
What's a "heavy weapon"? A claymore isn't that much heavier than a rapier... the rapier's some three pounds, the claymore four or perhaps five. And you hold it with two hands, so you're just as fast.
And the rapier never "overtook the claymore." It was a strictly civilian duelling weapon, and never saw any use on the battlefield. Mostly because it wasn't a very practical weapon if your opponent had armour.
I don't know if differentiating weapons by attack speed is a very good idea. Apart from the fact that it isn't really how weapons behave in reality, it risks making combats look cartoony and weird if attack speed gets too high. Fighters don't hit eachother as fast as possible with a weapon. They feint, dodge, parry, rush eachother, fall back. A system that looks like that would make combat much more fun to watch.
For example, lightsaber fights in Kotor looked much cooler than sword fights in NWN2, because in the former the animations are linked, people parry, react to eachother's attacks. In NWN2, they just stand and hack with the same animation. Now, part of why this worked in KOTOR was that there were only a few different weapons, so you could do seperate animations for all weapon types so they'd match up. But another part was that everybody only got one attack per three second round (and extra attacks from flurry or something were incorporated in the first, one attack animation) whilst in NWN2 you can get 8 or more attacks, all of which have to follow eachother in a 6 second round, forcing the game into a much more simplistic animation system.
I think making weapons attack at comparable (relatively slow) speeds will allow for a much better looking game. A weapon like a rapier could get a bonus on feinting instead, and a claymore a bonus on reach, to keep them working differently. | |
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