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grandpa
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Entrenched Oldbie

Post Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 2:42 am      Reply with quote

Matt wrote:
crayon wrote:
slyviolin wrote:
Make small blade a viable option please Sad


Hopefully one day all weapons are equally viable, while still retaining unique identities and usage.


Small-blade should never be equally viable to larger weapons. If you get it high enough it's pretty cool as is anyway.


I don't see why not, personally. Certainly not for cries of 'realism.' Neither the game nor the game engine can lay claim to realism for combat with large tower-shield/riot-shield style shields being deployed by individual fighters rather than formations en-masse, providing no significant disadvantages(and indeed great advantages) to those individuals when compared with more manageably-sized shields.

It's no less silly(and probably a great deal more) than a man with two daggers being on-par with a man with a greatsword. You don't use a riot or tower shield as an individual, because it's not designed for that.


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Tyrael
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Post Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 4:23 am      Reply with quote

Small-blade can be pretty scary. Skabor from Atonement had high level small-blade and he was pretty dangerous up close.

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slyviolin
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Sometimes I struggle with my demons. Other times we just fuck and have cheesecake.

Post Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 4:35 am      Reply with quote

I wish that weapons were balanced purely as an rp promotion reason. I think at the moment due to the min/max culture of gaming everyone goes bludgeon and long-blades purely because they can deliver more damage, not because it would make sense for their character.

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crayon
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Post Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 4:52 am      Reply with quote

grandpa wrote:
Matt wrote:
crayon wrote:
slyviolin wrote:
Make small blade a viable option please Sad


Hopefully one day all weapons are equally viable, while still retaining unique identities and usage.


Small-blade should never be equally viable to larger weapons. If you get it high enough it's pretty cool as is anyway.


I don't see why not, personally. Certainly not for cries of 'realism.' Neither the game nor the game engine can lay claim to realism for combat with large tower-shield/riot-shield style shields being deployed by individual fighters rather than formations en-masse, providing no significant disadvantages(and indeed great advantages) to those individuals when compared with more manageably-sized shields.

It's no less silly(and probably a great deal more) than a man with two daggers being on-par with a man with a greatsword. You don't use a riot or tower shield as an individual, because it's not designed for that.


Being stabbed is very unpleasant. A skilled person with a pair of knives going against somebody with a greatsword confers a significantly greater coded disadvantage than there is, in reality, a disadvantage... if there's really MUCH of one to begin with, especially given armoring, it really only comes in on reach.

Not much that can really be done about the massive riot shields, sadly, but I agree with you.

Tyrael wrote:
Small-blade can be pretty scary. Skabor from Atonement had high level small-blade and he was pretty dangerous up close.


Skills were a completely different game, then, I'm told. Also, there was a lot of code around specific weapon types at that point that isn't the case now (generally because it was glitchy as hell, I'm told).

Keep in mind, a dedicated person can make almost anything look good, but some things are more efficient than others.

There might be a way to make knives work by min/maxing either strength or agility, but that's not really the point.

slyviolin wrote:
I wish that weapons were balanced purely as an rp promotion reason. I think at the moment due to the min/max culture of gaming everyone goes bludgeon and long-blades purely because they can deliver more damage, not because it would make sense for their character.


Sadly, this is true. It's partly a 'min-max' thing, but also mostly stems from combat being one-dimensional at the moment. There are a lot of ideas out there for making it more multi-dimensional to allow for a diverse range of approaches, rather than just varying levels of questionable viability.


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crayon
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Post Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 6:28 am      Reply with quote

Anyhow, this thread has kind of devolved into some specific points of debate regarding the versatility and superiority of some skills and approaches to combat versus others, and I think it's fair to say that we've all gotten our points out, with regards to things like Dual Wield vs. Sole Wield and Bludgeon vs. Long-Blade.

Is there any chance we can get back to the original purpose here, regarding coded improvements on the system as a whole, or relatively simple ways to improve existing aspects of the system?

By coded here, I mean coded. Specific numbers on weapons/armor and craft elements aren't really on the table of things Chazz is looking to mess with, I don't think?

Food for thought: Does anybody have any ideas regarding hide? I think most people kind of have trouble with how it works, and it does feel really unintuitive and unrewarding. Unintuitive in the sense when you're hiding, if anybody can see you, everybody can see you, etc. Unrewarding in the sense that for almost all intents and purposes no hide at all is as good as master hide. At the same time, it's a ridiculously useful tool. How could somebody go about making it feel intuitive and rewarding without making it either not useful at all or TOO useful?


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Matt
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Builder

Post Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 10:51 am      Reply with quote

No hide vs master hide is very different. It determines the speed at which you hide. Higher levels of hide you just disappear.

Editted to add: Knives should never be on par with regular sized weapons because... they're knives. They don't have the same reach and you can put the same force behind them.


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slyviolin
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Sometimes I struggle with my demons. Other times we just fuck and have cheesecake.

Post Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 5:37 pm      Reply with quote

But in saying they don't have the same reach if someone with a knife got in close the tables turn. Ther'es no longer any swing/windup room for axes, swords or polearms and the blows from these weaken substantially while the knife can deliver blow after blow after blow with full force.

Other than averaging them out they only way I can see that would reflect this would be a positioning system. Two simple fighting type 'Close quarters/distanced"

Person A & B have a fight. by default they are distanced from eacother and A wielding swords has the advantage.

Person B Decides to step in on the person and change to close quarter combat. They enter whatever command and roll their skill, prowess, dodge, wtf vs the other persons. If Person A wards off the attempt they stay distanced.. but if Person B is successful it is now classed as closed quarters combat.

Person B, a shortblade user, now has the close quarters buff will Person A loses the distanced buff. And the fight continues on.. but this is definately not ideal for Person A and they enter whatever command to step back into distanced combat mode, more rolling.

Basically making it a tug of war to what position you want. It would even be interesting if Bludgeoners had only a half buff between both styles of combat.. so they had to play the tug of war to keep the other person debuffed.


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crayon
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Post Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 8:26 pm      Reply with quote

Matt wrote:
No hide vs master hide is very different. It determines the speed at which you hide. Higher levels of hide you just disappear.

Editted to add: Knives should never be on par with regular sized weapons because... they're knives. They don't have the same reach and you can put the same force behind them.


Wronk.

First of all, the speed at which you hide is borderline irrelevant unless you're solo-scavving. If you're solo-scavving, and your hide is POPPED, then you probably just got engaged on in combat. Which means that you can't rehide anyhow. Even if you flee, you're going to get charged on faster than you can hide.

Thus. Completely irrelevant.

Same efficacy whether you have no skill or high skill. In fact, many people level hide JUST enough to unlock sneak, and then freeze it, because it's an unrewarding waste of points towards your cap.

On the subject of small blades. You say that there's no way somebody can put the same force behind a knife that one can behind a sword? You're wrong. Knives are THRUSTING weapons. Not slashing weapons. The length of the weapon has minimal bearing on the force that can be applied through it in a thrusting scenario.

Even IF the reality was that knives are a ridiculously weak weapon compared to longer blades (and it's not), it would behoove us to balance in the interests of playability.


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Matt
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Builder

Post Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 8:54 pm      Reply with quote

crayon wrote:
Matt wrote:
No hide vs master hide is very different. It determines the speed at which you hide. Higher levels of hide you just disappear.

Editted to add: Knives should never be on par with regular sized weapons because... they're knives. They don't have the same reach and you can put the same force behind them.


Wronk.

First of all, the speed at which you hide is borderline irrelevant unless you're solo-scavving. If you're solo-scavving, and your hide is POPPED, then you probably just got engaged on in combat. Which means that you can't rehide anyhow. Even if you flee, you're going to get charged on faster than you can hide.

Thus. Completely irrelevant.

Same efficacy whether you have no skill or high skill. In fact, many people level hide JUST enough to unlock sneak, and then freeze it, because it's an unrewarding waste of points towards your cap.

On the subject of small blades. You say that there's no way somebody can put the same force behind a knife that one can behind a sword? You're wrong. Knives are THRUSTING weapons. Not slashing weapons. The length of the weapon has minimal bearing on the force that can be applied through it in a thrusting scenario.

Even IF the reality was that knives are a ridiculously weak weapon compared to longer blades (and it's not), it would behoove us to balance in the interests of playability.


That's a matter of opinion on hide. I've found higher levels of hide to be incredibly useful in the past on my solo-scav/PvP heavy PC on Atonement. There's also ambushing and if you actually get revealed from actions while in the room.

Small-blade is a free skill. It just wouldn't make sense for them to be as good as swinging around a sword or hammer. Spears are thrusting weapons as well... so knives=spears? They're inferior because of their size and reach especially vs armor. But honestly I've seen some PCs that d-wielded knives that could wreck the shit out of people in the past so they're really not as bad as you think.


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crayon
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Post Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 9:01 pm      Reply with quote

Again.

Just because some people can take something that's inefficient and MAKE IT look good, doesn't mean it's actually good.

I make ample use of Master Hide on my current PC. Tons of use of it. But that doesn't mean that its utility is WORTH the investment. Ambushing is the ONLY thing significantly effected by your level in hide, and because of armor devals on hide/sneak, even then it's questionable, given how critical good armor is to being able to combat effectively. Consider for a moment the impact that, say, 'Dual-Wield' or 'Deflect' or 'Bludgeon' has on a character. Try to mentally assign a value to the strength that, say, Adroit in one of them brings. Now try to mentally assign a value to adroit Hide. Swing it around to the other side for a second. Consider Adroit armorcrafting, producing top-tier armors. Assign a value to that. Now stop for a second, and consider that all skills ought be more or less equal. The game codedly treats them as equal in most cases for things like: skill caps, skill gains, etc. Do you seriously think they're of equal value?

As far as small-blade being a free skill, I kind of agree with you, at least on that count. It should probably be made not-free, then bumped up to be on par.

With sufficient min/maxing, it's entirely possible, probably, for somebody to make small blades look strong. But the build to make it happen is completely counter-intuitive.


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