Weapon Balancing

[IEfan]

Like my close friend wisely said (who plays a lot of tabletop RPG's, card games, etc etc and designs then, he pledged too as well) - Obsidian isn't basing the battle system on DnD (or on any other tabletop systems to that matter) now and they're thinking stuff carefully so hopefully the prior, glaring problems with weapon balancing from previous Forgotten Realms titles won't become relevant.

Edited September 20, 2012 by IEfan

[Infinitron]

Sawyer, I think you're right as far as making a fantasy game goes, but I wouldn't make the "weapons are specific and unique" thing a completely fundamental value. Some weapons are just better than others.

In reality, in different circumstances, yes, but we're making a game. I don't see value in spending resources to make weapon types (and skills/talents/perks/whatever to use them) that are designed to be inherently inferior in all circumstances. We spent plenty of time making weapons in IWD (especially) and IWD2 that no one used because they were fundamentally bad at a base level.

 

Does verisimilitude of setting have no value?

[OldRPG'sAreGood]

One thing I would like to see when it comes to weapons and their balance, is damage % system against different armor types. For example, a rapier would do only 75% damage against plate armor instead of the usual 100%. And then there'd be armors that'd be bad against certain weapon types (forgive me for the bad, make that horrid, example, only one I can think off the top of my head), for example an axe would do 150% damage against wooden armor.

 

Then again critical damage and base damage changes in +1 and +2 etc. weapons could be interesting, if, say, a more powerfuly enchanted weapons would do higher base damage, but with reduced critical chance.

[Shadowstrider]

Sawyer, I think you're right as far as making a fantasy game goes, but I wouldn't make the "weapons are specific and unique" thing a completely fundamental value. Some weapons are just better than others.

In reality, in different circumstances, yes, but we're making a game. I don't see value in spending resources to make weapon types (and skills/talents/perks/whatever to use them) that are designed to be inherently inferior in all circumstances. We spent plenty of time making weapons in IWD (especially) and IWD2 that no one used because they were fundamentally bad at a base level.

 

Does verisimilitude of setting have no value?

No.

[Jarmo]

We spent plenty of time making weapons in IWD (especially) and IWD2 that no one used because they were fundamentally bad at a base level.

 

Good old D&D and eleventeen kinds of 1d10 polearms and spears offering nothing over other 2-handers.

Waah, where are all the guisarmes and ranseurs!!

Edited September 20, 2012 by Jarmo

[cealicu_ca]

have you guys ever played Rage of Mages 2?

 

there was an interesting system there, for both weapons and magic:

 

the more you used a weapon or magic (type), the best you became at using them (which really makes sense). The point is that if you overspecialize there were points in the game that were very easy as well as points in the game that were very hard and challenging (for example, you overspecialize in fire and one boss is all but earth 95% resistant! try killing him with your earth dart lvl. 1, because he would shrug everything else but that, regenerating faster than your damage...).

 

this also lets players just "grow" their character without the need for "malee/ranged/magic" classes. sure, there should be classes, but once you get this out of the way you can concentrate on other things about classes and, even more, you could get strange but effective combinations. also it removes the need to assign "points" or "skill points" into a specific area of combat leaving them free for other purposes.

 

another nice addition would be, as mentioned before, to actually get better (or get e perk) for killing say 500 goblins (to paraphrase the person who reminded me of this) that would give you an advantage the next time you encounter a goblin (you can even make it tiered, say lvl. 1 for 100 goblins, lvl. 2 for 500 and so on). a somewhat similar system was used in LoTRO i think. attaching it to the weapon would be easy-peasy (i think? :D), as the perk would have a simple requirement (for example, torching 500 goblins meas that whenever you use fire magic against them you have +5% damage).

Edited September 20, 2012 by cealicu_ca

[septembervirgin]

Speaking from experience (I've been struck with several weapons in my life), crushing weapons aren't much good against metal armor despite what people claim. Long, narrow pointy weapons were good against metal armor: just stick the point through the face opening really hard. Chopping weapons aren't very good against shields, what's better is a splash weapon; you can't chop a well-made shield with an axe, warriors think long and hard about weapons and armor. If you think it's rock, paper, scissors it really isn't. If you see a weapon that was for use on the battlefield it's likely only good at killing lightly armored and non-armored targets.

 

Really, it's not going to help you to try a cutting sword against a guy entirely clad in steel. What you do is you knock the guy in steel over, restrain the guy, and drown him or pour boiling wax into his helmet or remove the helmet then remove the head.

 

We're looking at role-playing game tropes where it's easy to kill an armored enemy. We're working with that system of ideation.

 

If we want a rock-scissors-paper concept of weapons and armor, try:

 

Crushing versus unarmored

Slashing versus light armor

Piercing versus heavy armor

Splashing versus shields

Wrestling versus complete heavy armor

[Infinitron]

Sawyer, I think you're right as far as making a fantasy game goes, but I wouldn't make the "weapons are specific and unique" thing a completely fundamental value. Some weapons are just better than others.

In reality, in different circumstances, yes, but we're making a game. I don't see value in spending resources to make weapon types (and skills/talents/perks/whatever to use them) that are designed to be inherently inferior in all circumstances. We spent plenty of time making weapons in IWD (especially) and IWD2 that no one used because they were fundamentally bad at a base level.

 

Does verisimilitude of setting have no value?

No.

 

...

[Parsifal]

I get the FO3 examples, and the d&d problem where a longsword is just better than all the other 1H weapon categories against 19 of 20 creatures. In that case, balancing sounds great.

On the flip side, I was imagining how dumb it would be if all the weapons of a given type were always statistically different. If I find 10 swords after killing a squad of orcs or soldiers, is each sword really going to have unique stats?

 

Anyway, this weapon balancing is not of great concern to me, I was just having a thought or two.

Game design from the ground floor up must require a lot of consideration of what to make new and what to keep tried and true. I wish the industry wasn't absolutely swarmed with people trying to get in. I'd love to write dialogue and character for a game someday.

[The Sharmat]

Has anyone mentioned being able to find enchanted guns just as you would any other traditional piece of RPG equipment?

 

Because I want magi-tech guns.