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Post by Fuzz on Jul 28, 2015 16:49:06 GMT -5
See, warhammers and greathammers vs all other one handed and two handed variant weapons. Unless in some specific cases ( rapiers being good for block), they trump nearly all other options just by merit of having higher raw damage, with no attack malus over say a halberd, claymore, battleaxe or longsword. Say what again!? Rapiers are thin brittle weapons made for thrusting at weak spots in your enemy's defenses, their length giving them a distinct advantage over daggers, except in tight spaces. They would break the moment anything strikes them at an angle. For once a YouTube video that's actually correct.
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Post by Fuzz on Jul 28, 2015 16:57:40 GMT -5
Good demo, too. Rapiers are not what people think of from movies. There is a BIG difference between a rapier and a fencing foil, which is what everyone thinks of when they hear "rapier."
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Post by Everlight on Jul 28, 2015 16:58:43 GMT -5
The issue is that it is currently disheartening to level Unarmed when, due to DR eating up most of the damage, it takes a minute or two to kill a single bandit solo, while sustaining a good portion of injury yourself. Get in a group and the DR spikes so high that you don't do any damage at all, and thus not any skill xp. Very few will ever get Unarmed past 20 for these reasons. See, warhammers and greathammers vs all other one handed and two handed variant weapons. Unless in some specific cases ( rapiers being good for block), they trump nearly all other options just by merit of having higher raw damage, with no attack malus over say a halberd, claymore, battleaxe or longsword. Say what again!? Rapiers are thin brittle weapons made for thrusting at weak spots in your enemy's defenses, their length giving them a distinct advantage over daggers, except in tight spaces. They would break the moment anything strikes them at an angle. ...What? Rapiers are thin brittle weapons? They would break the moment anything strikes them? Talk about misconceptions... There are many variations of rapiers, but on average a rapier is 1: Not at all lighter than say, a longsword or arming sword. 2: Not brittle and is not exceptionally likely to break when struck by another weapon. 3: While not primarily intended for cutting (due to the narrower blade), it is possible to a degree with most. Edit: no need for links, Fuzz beat me to it. So yeah, please cut the nonsense. Rapiers are/were effective all-round swords in their own right!
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Post by mireigi on Jul 28, 2015 17:05:37 GMT -5
I stand corrected. Thank you
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Post by Everlight on Jul 28, 2015 17:13:06 GMT -5
So, should I do something other than dual-wielding? Most of the time it just feels like I am swinging at air. Which, most of the time, I am actually doing... And lots of 0 damage.
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Post by BlackmoreKnight on Jul 28, 2015 17:15:50 GMT -5
Steering this topic back on course, as one of the people on the server that's trying to make TWF work, it really doesn't at the moment. I miss more often than the two-handers, I deal less damage when I do hit, and my perceived 'advantage' against lighter armor is moot because they dodge better which means my to-hit chance is even worse than if they were a tank in heavy armor. I see no practical reason to try and continue to make the playstyle work.
And no, 'it gets better' is not a compelling argument. A player shouldn't have to shuffle through, in the case of this server's advancement speed, potential months of inadequacy and dull gameplay for the vague promise of being as effective as other people are right now and will continue to be (Two-handers get damn good cap talents) at some undefined point in the future. All playstyles should be, as a general design goal, consistent in their viability and role throughout a character's lifespan, with new abilities serving to keep them on par as new challenges arise. It shouldn't be a matter of 'this is good here, this is good three months later here, ect'.
On the general spectrum sword and shield is fine, to put the other point on topic. They're not an archetype meant for soloing, but they'll never have issue finding people to drag them along. If you're going sword/shield you're going heavy armor as a rule, which means you are tank. Now, MULTIPLE sword/shield in a single party is verging on redundancy, especially as Taunt both gets working and gets Mass variations such that one person can tank an entire spawn. But hey, who knows.
PE might implement fights with forced tank swaps.
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Brooker
Just Wandered In
The truth doesn't matter, It only matters what the people believe.
Posts: 25
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Post by Brooker on Jul 28, 2015 17:27:44 GMT -5
So when considering balance what would make someone choose a dagger over a claymore?
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Post by BlackmoreKnight on Jul 28, 2015 17:31:40 GMT -5
The same reason people do in base DnD. Higher AB for certain character archetypes. With Engines not having stat points though, higher AB in general would have to be the way to go.
I imagine it's easier to shank someone with a dagger than strike them with a claymore.
Also bonuses to sneak attack when used with a dagger/other small weapons might be an incentive. Faster bleed ticks, higher bleed cap, other ideas. There are ways to differentiate weapons beyond raw stats, though with our statless character system at the moment all we have to go on ARE the weapon stats, and with everything at a base of 5 AB with it only going down from there, damage is king.
Hell a dagger with 10 AB wouldn't be unbalanced if it only did like 4-12 damage. It'd hit every attack but only do appreciable damage like.. 30-40% of the time, and even then significantly less than a claymore.
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Post by Sobriquet on Jul 28, 2015 17:47:51 GMT -5
Yep. One way to try to create some balance and differentiation woul be to allow two hand to continue dishing massive damage, making it an effective means of piercing through heavy armor, while lowering its AB and/or allowing dual wield/dual wield weapons to have higher AB to make it a more effective means of dealing with lighter armor. Of course, there's shield and unarmed and guns in this equation which all need to be considered as well.
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Post by ronan on Jul 28, 2015 17:50:15 GMT -5
In my opinion, it's difficult to talk the balance of weapons when we don't have access to the entire array of weapon variants / mods, and no one has a skill over tier 1 yet.
For example, everyone complains about dual wielding. However, dual wielding ALWAYS sucks early on in base NwN..... until you get perfect dual wielding. There is a feat tree IG that, at max rank, entirely negates the penalty of the off-hand weapon. Once a character starts picking up those abilities that negate off-hand damage, and the ones that add AB to dual-wielding, your going to be hitting more times consequtively than a two-hander..... your damage will be enormous.
It's just like Skyrim. Do you expect to be amazing within your first few days of skyrim? Noooot really, unless you play it on a very, very low difficulty.
Of COURSE two-handed weapons are doing way more damage than either other melee variant at low levels. They always do.
And one handed is indeed between the two, because there is no off-hand penalty to take into account. Your not doing the major damage of a two-hander straight up, but neither are you going for the burst damage of dual-wielding and fighting that penalty. It's the safe road, straight down the middle..... no way to fail, but no way to really excel either.
The shields role is utility, especially once bashes gain their knockdown chance.
If anything, it feels like some of the AC and DR on spawns could be turned down, not anything to do with the melee weapons as a whole at all.
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Post by drunkensolamnic on Jul 28, 2015 17:59:25 GMT -5
I honestly think we need people to go down some other paths before we make a judgement call. Two-Weapon fighting results in some shit AB early on, but looking at the tree you can actually go the block route, get 4 reposit attacks around, and eventually your AB gets normalized. While using say a rapier and a shortsword both with bladeguards giving you +2 block over, and wrist-guards giving you another +2 block. You'll essentially be harder to hit for damage than anyone else.
Sword and Board does not want for damage from what I've seen, they've a lower minimum damage but I have observed strong consistent hits, they seem well complimented for the lower damage by virtue of the shield's stats.
And again; it is possible that not all enemies presented int the future will be so armored. Remembering that undead get damage immunity applied before their DR and that anyone else does have the armor which mitigates modest damage.
Again, look at the utility of the different paths. 2-handed weapons and their abilities are good at doing 1 thing; hitting something really hard. The other two melee choices have higher utility options, which offset lower damage output to a good degree when you start looking a whole-scale combo-choices rather than just stand-alone trees.
As for Melee vs Guns - remember that ranged weapon uses are usually exposed to far less danger than melee weapon users... damage leaning in favor towards melee combat offsets the higher risk/reward nature of that somewhat.
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Post by electrohydra on Jul 28, 2015 18:02:26 GMT -5
I might run the numbers between twf and two-handing latter on like I did with guns, see what pops up, and possible fixes.
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Post by BlackmoreKnight on Jul 28, 2015 18:20:42 GMT -5
"Hitting something really hard" is the entire point of combat. And TWF will -always- have lower AB than what the other styles manage, as scaling is consistent for what it is. If you're going a block build you need a shield, unless you want to be pretty much worse than sword and board. For months and months of gameplay. And again, you end on parity or even worse with what a dedicated sword/shield blocker is doing.
"Wait and see" is a terrible approach to balance because you're basically telling people to not have fun now for the vague thought of fun in an indeterminate future.
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Post by drunkensolamnic on Jul 28, 2015 18:45:11 GMT -5
Again, my point is at level 1, you get to block 4 attacks with TWF. That makes it superior by 33% at that job. Add in the mods centered around blocking, and the ability tree centered around blocking... by level 3/4 you should b able to perform blocking actions far better than a sword and board, doing 2x as many return attacks, getting bonus to your defense rating.. while wearing light armor, which means you'll be more manuverable, able to sneak, and be harder to hit.
I've all three armor types over 20 (and used them all before settling on heavy for cosmetic reasons), I use block with a 2-handed sword with a cross-guard. I can assure you, that having 2 more riposte attacks and an extra 2 block would be superior over my combat from the defensive end of things.
Otherwise.. for damage, I'd expect driving a semi truck through a house to be more effective at wreaking havoc than driving a motorcycle into it. Arguing about damage differences per hit, is not something to do. The 2-handers do more damage per hit because they should.
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Post by eba on Jul 28, 2015 18:47:04 GMT -5
Say what again!? Rapiers are thin brittle weapons made for thrusting at weak spots in your enemy's defenses, their length giving them a distinct advantage over daggers, except in tight spaces. They would break the moment anything strikes them at an angle. For once a YouTube video that's actually correct. You're still gonna have a hell of a time blocking a long sword with a rapier.
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