Weapon related ideas for JADE

[pblack]

A lot can be found scattered around about weapons. Just thought i'd create a topic for all weapon-related discussions.

For instance, i'd REALLY like to see the presence of more whips in jade. If I get lucky on adom and find one or two whips at the beginning of my game I always play a whip master (since i tend to play high Dx chars anyway i like do double weild them too). Its a shame that there are no artifact whips and that there's only one type of whip that isn't special-named (whip of the snake or slaughtering). and the standard whip reeealy sucks. Unless you are a whip lover like me (well...that didn't come out right... LOL) that is willing to remain in low level dungeons to increase whip proficiency for a while, there's really no motivation to use a whip in adom. that and the fact that whips are incredibly rare....even the crappy ones (and in 5 years of playing adom i think i only found a whip of slaughtering once....never one of the snake...had to wish for it).
I think that the only character that can actually expect to find a whip or two during the game is a treasure hunter bard, and they suck in pure melee, so where's the fun?

Anyway...I think I read the same request once in the forum but it doesn't hurt to post my own.

The topic is open for everyone to suggest anything weapon related for JADE.

[magictrolloc]

Though this might not be practical, it would be interesting if a handful of melee weopons could execute 'special' attacks from two spaces away (with an affixed negative like higher energy cost). I am thinking particularly of long spears, lances and the like, perhaps after a certain level of weopon skill was reached.

I only mention this cause I watched the history channel sometime and this guy was demonstrating how a barbarian used a spear in melee combat. He could actually change his hand position on the spear to grip it towards the back end and swing it out so the whole 6-7 foot length was in front of him swinging out. It was quite impressive.

I'm also thinking of some turn-based strategies where spears were the weapon that could affect two squares instead of one.

Just a thought ...

[Sradac]

I'd prefer to not make whips all that important. How do you plan to whip a Moloch? or a heavy plate wearing orc? Good luck getting that leather through Eternium Plate Mail...

I could see slavers using whips though. Thats about it.

EDIT---

Shaolin monks and ninjas used weapons SIMILAR to whips, they would have spikes, or hooks, or blades on the ends of ropes or chains. Similar is where it stops though, as they behaved much differently than whips.
Deadliest Warrior on spike TV is really cool.

[RndmNumGenerator]

Good luck getting that leather through Eternium Plate Mail...



Based on an in-game reference, Eternium is supposedly the same thing as titanium in the real world. It adds up too, because both weigh roughly half as much as Iron and both are very strong. If someone had a suit of platemail made of titanium, I would say good luck getting through that with any medieval age weapon, even if the weapon made from titanium as well.

Thomas said that damage types would be added in JADE. If he goes with the traditional three types, this would be blunt, pierce and cut damages. Whips would probably be cut damage, which isn't very effective against heavily armored foes anyway. The main advantage of the whip is it's speed; successive whip strikes can be done faster then successive sword strikes. This could make it very useful against lightly armored foes. Also, whips can always be enchanted, just like any other weapon. Phase Whips anyone?

Anyway, getting back to the main topic. In JADE, I would like to see:
-More Whips(I agree with the OP here)
-More Polearms
-More Throwing Weapons
-More Differences Between Weapons

What I mean by the above, is right now there is no real difference between using a bow and a crossbow. There is no real difference between using a spear and a halberd. Yet these weapons function very differently in real. I would like it if each weapon type had it's own pros and cons, aside from different damage, accuracy and DV ratings.

[Fullmoon]

Um, sorry? Didn't understand about pros and cons. Exactly, what else besides damage type and statistics (accuracy, damage, energy cost) there could be?

BTW, idea about special moves for weapons looks nice. For example, after getting 4th rank on this weapon class (Skilled or whatever, I don't remember) you can use such move for high energy cost (or only once in a while), and at 8th energy cost lowers, and so on. Special moves could include disarming, confusing... And yes, they should be different for, say, spear and halberg.

[RndmNumGenerator]

Um, sorry? Didn't understand about pros and cons. Exactly, what else besides damage type and statistics (accuracy, damage, energy cost) there could be?

BTW, idea about special moves for weapons looks nice. For example, after getting 4th rank on this weapon class (Skilled or whatever, I don't remember) you can use such move for high energy cost (or only once in a while), and at 8th energy cost lowers, and so on. Special moves could include disarming, confusing... And yes, they should be different for, say, spear and halberg.

Several ideas for the pros and cons:

1) Different weapons have different energy costs. You could possibly attack three or four times with a dagger for every strike with a heavy weapon, such as a greatsword. This could even become somewhat abstract, where crossbows fire nearly instantly but take a long time to reload, while bows fire slower but don't need the reload time, so bows are faster overall.

2) Different benefits from the weapon's DV. Some weapons, such as spears or other polearms, are extremely easy to counter with, especially compared to something like an axe. There could be a chance to counter each attack blocked by the weapon's DV rating. The counterattack would be weaker then a normal attack, but consume barely any energy points.

3) Damage Types, such as cut/piece/blunt. But TB already said he plans on adding this in, so...

[Sradac]

Maybe more types of weapons.

Right now all two handed swords behave the same and are part of the same "class" in adom

But, Im pretty sure wielding a Katana or even the Dai-Katana is much different from a Claymore. All 3 blades behave very differently, are balanced differently, and require a different technique to wield properly.

Same with "Maces & Flails"

The Flail/Morningstar is very dangerous! It takes a LOT of training to not hit yourself with it. Why would bashing in heads with an iron mace make me better at using a steel morningstar, big scary ball with spikes on a chain. Ehhh it'll never be perfect though, so...


I say just make JADE fun, and very immersive. And dont make the world suck, I love exploring game worlds. Its always fun when you can actually go off the path and find something really interesting that has absolutely nothing to do with the main story, and possibly even get a side quest.

[pblack]

It has already been stated here that more throwing weapons would be nice, and i agree. More throwing knives especially! It sucks that normal daggers don't go automatically to the missile slot and finding more than 3 or 4 throwing knives during a normal game is a lucky break even for assassins that tend to find more daggers and such.

[vogonpoet]

To be fair, that could reasonably be improved with just a slight user interface change - being able to designate a stack of non-standard objects as a missile stack would massively improve thrown weapons. You could even limit the physical size/weight of a potential equipped designated missile stack if you felt it would be unbalancing to allow a stack of 16 small shields or battle axes compared to a stack of 16 knives (I am sure some people would say that being able to wield to a pole arm, a tower crystal shield and a missile stack of 16 small shields effectively, whist still retaining the ability to read a book, drink a potion, juggle 5 wands in a reverse cascade, is somehow unrealistic). I love throwing weapons, but often end up not using the last one in my stack whilst playing ADOM, just to avoid having to re-equip the stack again later, which is obviously kinda silly.

Extreme missile stacking could always be [physical bulk of stack, Dex and Str] modified if you really don't want to see hurthlings dual wielding shields which are theoretically taller than they are, whilst at the same time using 12 battle axes in the missile slot.

[ancient karmic drake]

suggestions

having a new spelunker class (indiana jones) which has a boost to whips similar to archers with missles?

maces and possibly morningstars, i dont recall, should fall into the clubs and hammers category,

whilst flails fall into the whips category

[grobblewobble]

Another suggestion. In ADOM polearms get a far better bonus to DV than other one-handed weapons like swords, maces and axes, while the bonus to to-hit and damage is about equal. They are also very easy to find. This makes polearms the weapon of choice in most games, except when you happen to find a great (artifact) weapon of some other type.

Perhaps it would be nice to have a bit more balance? For example, reduce the to-hit and and damage increase of polearms to counterbalance the great DV bonus?

[Nezur]

Polearms and other weapon-related issues have been discussed in these threads at least.

http://www.adom.de/forums/showthread.php?t=111
http://www.adom.de/forums/showthread.php?t=227

[Lich]

I really hope to see the weapon system expanded. There were a lot of weapons in ADOM, but very few of them see any use. Spears dominate throughout the game unless a good artifact or ego weapon is found. I would like to see more specialization, such as mage weapons (staves and sceptres) that deals sub-par damage but confer spellcasting bonuses. I also agree with whips making a more significant appearance. In general, there should definitely be more variety. Different weapons can be tailored to different classes, which I think is good for gameplay and style. I've played RPGs where the characters fought with flutes, harps, fans, and umbrellas (not all in the same one though).
Most of all, I think the weapon the PC wields should be very special to him. I mean, a PC's best protector in a dangerous world is probably his sword or mace or whatever. Higher metal and/or ego weapons shouldn't come by easily, as not all weaponsmiths are capable of making them, and those who are don't do it for just anybody. Killing a couple of lowly goblins or orcs may yield normal daggers and spears, but an eternium broadsword of devastation shouldn't be found lying on the dungeon floor. The power of artifact weapons (and I think other artifacts too) should be way out of the league of non-artifact ones and be a real challenge to obtain. It somehow doesn't feel right to be holding Serpent's Bite in one hand and Executor in another, while carrying Skullcrusher and Needle/Sting in the pack.

[DumbleDoor]

Well, to make things less complicated, there could be the three types of weapons, and three types of armor. For example, on the main screen the dv/pv would stay the same and then it would say "b+60 s-60" which means you get +60% blunt weapon defense and -60 slash defense. Also, the weapons could be something like this: when spear level up it gives tons of DV, but a very small amount of hit and damage. When whip levels up it gives lots of to hit, lots of damage, not much DV. This would also help balance weapons out, since whip has better training than spears. Also, I think for the shield skill, there should be DV, PV, and TO HIT.
EDIT: Another thing would be energy points. I think that whips should cost 700 EP while axes would cost 1200- something like that, to balance weapons out.

[pblack]

Well, to make things less complicated, there could be the three types of weapons, and three types of armor. For example, on the main screen the dv/pv would stay the same and then it would say "b+60 s-60" which means you get +60% blunt weapon defense and -60 slash defense. Also, the weapons could be something like this: when spear level up it gives tons of DV, but a very small amount of hit and damage. When whip levels up it gives lots of to hit, lots of damage, not much DV. This would also help balance weapons out, since whip has better training than spears. Also, I think for the shield skill, there should be DV, PV, and TO HIT.
EDIT: Another thing would be energy points. I think that whips should cost 700 EP while axes would cost 1200- something like that, to balance weapons out.

damage types (slashing, blunt, piercing) were already discussed somewhere here on the forums (perhabs even this topic =P). It's a nce idea but i don't really like it, at least not for the current ADOM model where you tend to stick with a certain weapon type once you find one that is good enough. Damage types would imply that certain high PV monsters couldn't be beaten with slashing weapons for example. This would decrease the overall value of certain weapons (whips for instance, shouldn't cause damage to an enemy wearing heavy plate armour) this is if course, manageable, but assuming JADE would play a lot like adom, i think damage types would make the game a lot less interesting, meaning that probably noone would be really proficient with one weapon since every game you would encounter monsters vulnerable to one type of damage or the other.

I like the current weapon skill system and while i do believe it does need a little balancing i think it's great as it is. Althou the energy cost idea is very good. But i don't think it should apply to weapon types, but to the weight of weapons. This could actually be interesting since the advantage of using an eternium weapon wouldn't come so much from extra damage (actually i never understood why an eternium sword should give out higher damage than an iron one), but from using up less energy points to attack. And of course, weapon skill decreases energy costs further. This, if well thought through, could end up with highly experienced dual dagger weilders having something like 3 attacks in one turn in grand mastery (perhabs even 4) and thou using the AotME requires tons of energy points, the damage output could REALLY be something to think about.

All this would, of course, require a whole revision of weapons damage so that there isn't incredible melee ownage =P

That's the way i see it at least, it is both more realistic and more fun imo. Also, it adds a whole lot more value to higher metal items since using a 100s Halberd of destruction might not be as good as using a 50s Eternium halberd. And since prefixes are magical properties of weapons (i always believed they were, despite some prefixes and sufixes just being extra damage and to hit), i would think this makes sense for a melee type of char that is going to be very proficient with one weapon to use a higher quality one, while classes with slow weapon skill increases might benefit more from a possible heavier, low-metal grade, but prefixed/suffixedmagical weapon.

[DumbleDoor]

Well, ADoM isn't very realistic, is it? Oh, and the damage resistance would be after the damage was calculated. Let's say you do 20 damage with slashing. The enemy has 10pv and 50% slashing defense. That doesn't mean you would do 0 damage, it means you would do 5. (20-10)1/2.

[pblack]

Well, ADoM isn't very realistic, is it? Oh, and the damage resistance would be after the damage was calculated. Let's say you do 20 damage with slashing. The enemy has 10pv and 50% slashing defense. That doesn't mean you would do 0 damage, it means you would do 5. (20-10)1/2.

How damage is calculated is up to TB to decide =P

But still, even if enemies weren't completely immune to any type of damage (wich i think woldn't happen since enemies are immune to elemental attacks and such... why not damage types), there would still be enemies too tough to tackle with swords or maces or whatever... and the same would apply, that the overall value of any given weapon would decrease.