Polearms vs. Current Weapons

[Srgnt Rehab]

Quick, "Polearms, How do they work?"
• Stab critter at optimal distance for max damage (as far away as you can be and still hit 'em)
• Some polearms throw on right click, in which case, longer held=farther thrown/more damage
• Some polearms throw at a specific charge level, in which case their dmg/dist is fixed
• +use/+back for backside bunt (less damage, but stuns/repells in some cases)
• Some polearms can block with right click, blocking usually prevents stun
• +block/+back on some pole arms will inititate "spin block" after a few seconds
- Spin block reduces damage further still, and deflects most projectiles
- The Pharaoh's lance also sets up a static field in spin block.
• +block/+forward will push away nearby monsters for any polearm that can block
• Some polearms swipe (instead of thrust) if you strafe while attacking
• Most polearms have a dbl/dmg charge attack at charge #1
Changelog will have specific polearm/weapon info

Errm... I been thinking about this for a long time, I'm probably like the only guy who didn't get the memo or something, but I was wondering if there will be more advanced weapon things like this for the original combat arts?
ex:
•Charging your arrows longer makes you do more damage and shoot farther, + use and forward slowly makes your camera zoom in until released/let go of any buttons?
•Right click actions with 2handed axes are "swiping moves" suffer a large damage penalty but gain the ability to hit multiple enemies...
•Advanced Dual Wield system for daggers (can swing both at the same time)
•An advanced stun for long charged 2handed hammer swings, first few charges would cause the regular daze, higher charges would cause complete stuns on most normal enemies (all the ones that can be pushed I would assume)
•Swords and martial arts are decent I suppose, maybe change fists to be left click is punch, right click is kick, add some nifty advanced charge moves at higher levels, maybe even falcon punch at lvl 40 (joke)
•Shields.... New shields would make any 1handed weapons be either par or stronger than 2handed weapons.

I'm merely speculating, but it looks like polearms are getting several really good additional benefits that the previous weapons lack. I'm really bad with technical stuff, so what I listed there probably is impossible or something, but just ideas to improve the weapon selection. Perhaps even get people to stop crying that blunts and axes are the same thing... You can't smoke an axe (Joke again)

Moved from the wrong thread

 

[Thothie]

•Charging your arrows longer makes you do more damage and shoot farther, + use and forward slowly makes your camera zoom in until released/let go of any buttons?

Can't without major code changes or an entirely new base script with a lot more overhead.

•Right click actions with 2handed axes are "swiping moves" suffer a large damage penalty but gain the ability to hit multiple enemies...

Charge does this, without the dmg penalty. Would need new player and view anims. Plus there's the risk that players will just keep right clicking to rank up the axe faster, and avoid the misschance/dmgmulti that seperates axes from blunt arms.

•Advanced Dual Wield system for daggers (can swing both at the same time)

In addition to breaking balance no end, Ambidexterity for specific weapons is a Title feature. However, MiB never gave me a flag to enable/disable that, so until I figure that bit out, it's kinda boned.

•An advanced stun for long charged 2handed hammer swings, first few charges would cause the regular daze, higher charges would cause complete stuns on most normal enemies (all the ones that can be pushed I would assume)

Stun is already insanely long - 30 seconds or more, in some cases.

•Swords and martial arts are decent I suppose, maybe change fists to be left click is punch, right click is kick, add some nifty advanced charge moves at higher levels, maybe even falcon punch at lvl 40 (joke)

Issues came up when last we tried this, although there's the additional issue that I never got anims with equal time for each fist.

•Shields.... New shields would make any 1handed weapons be either par or stronger than 2handed weapons.

Not sure if that's a complaint or a request. Parry system changed quite a bit, making shields more valuable, but I compensated by giving all 2h weapons a x1.5 Parry (vs. the up to x3.0 shields can provide). Plan was to make weapon parry vary more greatly by type,vs. basing it purely on the weapon skill, as it is in the alpha I'm putting up today/tomorrow.


There's also plans to restore some of our old MS 1.0 direction based attacks, such as the attack variations we had with the Skull Blade and ESS. The polearm experiments allowed some new functions that may allow us to restore these old features.

 

[Keldorn]

WTB kicking with a weapon out.

Also maybe polearm damage system, but in reverse for most smallarms.

 

[Thothie]

Also maybe polearm damage system, but in reverse for most smallarms.

That thar be an idea, although it'd be tricky, especially with the smallarms having such a short total range - even extending it to the upmost that'd match the viewmodel.

It'd help if our monster collision boxes were round, instead of box shaped. Polearms work their distance from monster to player by subtracting both their widths - but if the monster is at a 45 degree angle from you, then his real minimum distance is twice as long as the calculated [distance-(monster.width/2)-(player.width/2)]. Since distance works in your favor with Polearms, this is less noticable than it would be with a similar inversed system with Smallarms.

 

[Srgnt Rehab]

My comment got owned in 10 minutes ... hmm, but for the mace thing, I wasn't talking about longer durations, I was saying COMPLETE stuns, they can't move or attack... But I supose my suggestions/thoughts were all in vein.

But still, it seems like polearms get way more moves than the older weapons.

 

[Thothie]

If it makes you feel any better, Polearms suck for stats.

They are, all in all, a lot harder to use, and kinda situational. They can get real useless, real quick, if you get swarmed by critters that get close to you, and picking one target out of a crowd, which you have to do in a multi-attacker situation with polearms, is difficult. They are at their best in one on one situations with slower opponents, or when you can rely on other players to draw the agro beasties from you.

They are also so complex that they will probably confuse first time players terribly. :\

 

[Srgnt Rehab]

Ehh... I don't care about the stats as much as the game play... I admire the skill involved in using weapons with many different abilities, its why I like weapons like Lrod and Northern Maul...

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

I would definetly like to see more stuff like this for all of the weapons. I think this might act as a step towards an eventual class system, too.

Here are my suggestions:
Swords - Make right click function as a block attack. It already seems like there is an animation for this.

Martial Arts - Maybe blocking? Or make the demon claws speed attack standard, but make it drain stamina instead?

Small Arms - Sneak attack would be awesome, especially if the speed attack was retained.

Axes - The AoE attack is sufficient, although adding it as a right click might be useful if there were some kind of cool down before you could do it again.

Blunt Arms - Give the Bludgy Rage to all 2 handed blunts, remove the HP regen, give them infinite 'uses' and make it drain 100% stamina per use.

Archery - Make all bows that use arrows (non magic bows) charge like the dark sword, but without a mana penalty. Maybe give it a stamina penalty. Adding a push back would be a cool addition as well.

Spell Casting - Hopefully this will be reworked someday.

Can't without major code changes or an entirely new base script with a lot more overhead.

That's too bad. I would love to see bows function similar to a dark sword, but with a stamina penalty.

In addition to breaking balance no end, Ambidexterity for specific weapons is a Title feature. However, MiB never gave me a flag to enable/disable that, so until I figure that bit out, it's kinda boned.

What about dual wielding totally breaks balance? Can't you just nerf the damage on both hands? Dominant hand (right?) does 60% damage and the secondary hand does 35%? (random numbers). Then simply make the dual wielding Title more effective?
That's probably a really obvious suggestion that has already been tried, though..

Stun is already insanely long - 30 seconds or more, in some cases.

It's not 'insane' when you compare it to the volcano/firewall 'fear' status that makes enemies flee.

 

[Srgnt Rehab]

Also, when I was talking about the cleave with axes, I was thinking like a regular attack, not a long charge that causes push... it'd add more veriety.

Also, I don't think the dagger thing would break the balance... I never see people using regular daggers (AKA not Neckhunter) and this is for a reason. Most daggers aren't incredible compared to the other weapons. I could see dualwield making dual bone daggers about as good as blood drinker... maybe a level req for dualwielding would need to be balanced.

Also, making the weapons suffer a penelty of % to damage for dual wielding makes plenty of sense to me.

The bow thing, again, people suggest the same thing as me... I've always wanted to beable to charge shots for some reason... my inner marksman...

 

[Thothie]

It's not 'insane' when you compare it to the volcano/firewall 'fear' status that makes enemies flee.

Leaving aside that it takes longer to do, it also be a bug. They are only supposed to flee the danger area for a few seconds, but under the MAY2010 patch, it seemed the flee danger radius function got buggared somehow. *should* be fixed now.

Also, making the weapons suffer a penelty of % to damage for dual wielding makes plenty of sense to me.

Smallarms are pretty mean when you take into account the DPS, especially in speed mode - raw Ambidexterity doubles that. The penalty for the offhand weapon was an idear already in the works, but it requires a code function that we don't currently have (and similarly, again, the ability to toggle Ambidexterity is also currently uncoded).

The bow thing, again, people suggest the same thing as me... I've always wanted to beable to charge shots for some reason... my inner marksman...

ATM, the charge is *supposed* to reduce to COF, but it seems to be a bit buggard, or the effect is rather minimal. The projectile weapon registration works a bit differently from the standard weapons, so it isn't possible to just 'stack another level on'. The Polearms have a custom system, but it doesn't allow for rapid fire, and those that require a charge to throw are similarly stuck with fixed damage and range.

Swords - Make right click function as a block attack. It already seems like there is an animation for this.

Many, if not most, of the 2h swords can already do this.

Small Arms - Sneak attack would be awesome, especially if the speed attack was retained.

Yet another planned Title feature - is going to be fun to work out though - having to ask the monster if you are in his field of vision, and praying the lag makes it work out, and all.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

ATM, the charge is *supposed* to reduce to COF

What does COF stand for?

The projectile weapon registration works a bit differently from the standard weapons, so it isn't possible to just 'stack another level on'.

This is probably a stupid question, but would it be worth reworking the way certain weapons behave?

Many, if not most, of the 2h swords can already do this.

I only thought the Fshard could do it. I can't do it with BD if i recall.

But either way, at least with Fshard, it's not really a viable option. It would be much more useful if the user could choose for how long he wanted to block with his sword, rather than force him to block for x time. It would be nice if you could just hit right click to block/unblock.

Might give us some problems with other weapons, like hoarfrost or fshard, but at least in the case of hoar, it doesn't block anyway.

 

[Srgnt Rehab]

All non-elemental 2handed swords have right click to block similar to shields... So I believe that means the strongest sword that does this is the Spiderblade? and everthing weaker than it.
EDIT: this post started to look like team whine, removed the sadness.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

Many, if not most, of the 2h swords can already do this.

I just tested almost every two handed sword except the spiderblade and none of them have blocking capabilities. Did you mean that in the new patch most swords can do this? Because if they are supposed to be able to block now they aren't functioning correctly.

 

[Thothie]

Hrmm... Dun *think* it's a new thang, at least I thought I remembered doing in under MAY2010 - it's part of swords_base_twohanded - the individual swords have to be specially flagged *not* to do that... As is the case with the Hoarfrost Shard, the Blood Drinker, the Felewyn Shard, and anything else that does something else on right click. Shall have to examine.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

the individual swords have to be specially flagged *not* to do that... As is the case with the Hoarfrost Shard, the Blood Drinker, the Felewyn Shard, and anything else that does something else on right click.

Ironically, the Fshard is the only weapon that does block. But, the blood drinker does not do anything when you right click. What's it supposed to do?

 

[Thothie]

the individual swords have to be specially flagged *not* to do that... As is the case with the Hoarfrost Shard, the Blood Drinker, the Felewyn Shard, and anything else that does something else on right click.

Ironically, the Fshard is the only weapon that does block. But, the blood drinker does not do anything when you right click. What's it supposed to do?

It causes the Blood Drinker to return before the blood dance ends.

Felewyn Shard only blocks on full charge, and said block has a lotta special features... And the way that's setup, it's kinda detrimental - maybe should add a back-peddle or +use requirement or something, so you don't accidentally trip it when you're just trying to skewer something.

 

[Tigerkev]

Oh, thats why my Fshard isn't always shooting :/

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Felewyn shards don't shoot anything at all.

 

[Thothie]

Think he meant why he'd stop being able to attack for a few moments... I've done that lots in testing, and it's real annoying even there. Not quite sure what the best solution would be though.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

Think he meant why he'd stop being able to attack for a few moments... I've done that lots in testing, and it's real annoying even there. Not quite sure what the best solution would be though.

Maybe you could add a 'special ability' keyboard button for our current right click abilities. Then, right click would be free for blocking, and special abilities like ice circle and lightsaber could be activated through a button on the keyboard.

 

[Thothie]

We're going to have to add a special ability button for Titles, eventually, and I really don't like the idea of stacking on more and more buttons to bind - especially not now that movement combinations are possible again.

 

[Jelly]

I also prefer movement combos instead of more buttons, as it requires a little more skill. IMO, movement combos is what made DMZ better than ESF.

 

[FER]

Cant we just add the special abilities to the F button menu?

 

[Tigerkev]

Damn, i didn't meant Fshard but hoarfrost.
I dont know why i thought it is Fshard, anyways, after i shot with it i can't use it again, it does the sound and the animation though.

 

[zeus9860]

Cant we just add the special abilities to the F button menu?

What, you mean the npc interaction button? Bad idea is bad imo, that's like saying "make special abilities from each weapon into a spell scroll" which doesnt make any sense either.
It wouldn't work out because at close range, you would end up interacting with npcs you didn't want to. Picture a bunch of orcs ganging up on you on foutpost, you want to cast an ice circle with hoarfrost but you seem to be having trouble doing it.

Only way to fix this would be adding a special ability option everytime you interect with something (npc/object/player or even nothing). Even though i think its a bad idea, would require to press F every time i wanted to do a special ability, wait for the menu to pop up and then press an option displayed on the menu, not to mention the lag issues that happen every once in a while, making it near impossible to open that menu within the time required for the player in order to use it.