Small variety of weapons - Your thoughts?

[RaedricAteMyWolfCompanion]

I haven't had time to complete PoE yet, however i'm still excited to progress further into the game as it's still captivating, however I came to realize after a short amount of time (22 hours of playtime), that the variety of weapons is kinda dull, and i would have loved for a bigger variety of weapons despite keeping the same model of a weapon, and then only change the name and stats. 

While this is not an extremely crucial part for the game, then I would just have loved for a wider selection of both armors and weapons. 

What are your thoughts on this?
Is the selection of weapons plentiful for you, or?

[Aron Times]

I think it's better to describe it as a "real variety of weapons" rather than a "small variety." It doesn't matter if you have 1948483948 different weapons if only 12 of them are actually viable. In Pillars of Eternity, I have a very hard time deciding on which weapon focus to choose for characters who don't already have it, and even early on, when I don't have access to Fine weapons yet, I have to take some time to decide which weapon and fighting style to use for my character.

 

Two-handers means fewer attacks (and therefore fewer attack maneuvers) but an easier time getting past damage reduction.

One-handers means more attacks and much higher accuracy but much less damage and therefore a harder time getting past armor.

Two-weapon fighting means a lot more attacks, lower accuracy, about the same amount of damage as one-handed style.

 

For high armor, two-handed weapons are the way to go. For low armor, two-weapon fighting is best. For high deflection targets, one-handed fighting is best.

 

However, it's complicated by the various innate and magical traits of each weapon. For example, maces seem mediocre until you realize that you can use a single mace for high accuracy and decent damage penetration (maces ignore 3 armor by default). For hard to hit targets, you couuld go with accurate weapons like spears and daggers, though they'll have a hard time penetrating armor.

 

Early in the game, in my Triple Crown Solo attempts, I typically go with a single mace. It gives me the best all-around performance, with good accuracy and good damage penetration, not to mention that it's very good against some early game monsters like spiders (who are weak to crushing damage). Later on, it really depends on what unique weapons I manage to find.

[Elgyn]

I haven't had time to complete PoE yet, however i'm still excited to progress further into the game as it's still captivating, however I came to realize after a short amount of time (22 hours of playtime), that the variety of weapons is kinda dull, and i would have loved for a bigger variety of weapons despite keeping the same model of a weapon, and then only change the name and stats. 

 

While this is not an extremely crucial part for the game, then I would just have loved for a wider selection of both armors and weapons. 

 

What are your thoughts on this?

Is the selection of weapons plentiful for you, or?

Well, I will never say no to more stuff, but I didn't feel like the game was super lacking in itemization. Having weapon set feats, I usually had two weapons to alternate between on my character, plus class abilities, so I felt that was more than enough. The actual item graphics seemed to progress at a decent rate as well, so it did feel like I was slowly become cooler even though the sprite selection did seem a bit limited. I just wish crafting had more options of things to throw on weapons, while still retaining 'base' weapons having some unique enchants so they are still valid equips. If they did that, I would have zero issues to nitpick.

[dirigible]

I don't think the number of weapons is too low. There are 10 ranged weapon types and 17 or more different melee weapon types.

 

More frustrating is the lack of meaningful variation. I personally don't feel like there's any difference between giving my warrior a battle axe and giving them a warhammer.

 

I'd actually prefer if there were fewer weapon types, but more differentiation between them.

[Grand_Commander13]

Pillars of Eternity already has too many weapons. Having to worry about damage types is aggravating, but even without that it's annoying to have to decide between deflection, DR piercing, accuracy, and damage versus speed. Just about the only actually interesting choice is for reach, but even that is just a "do you wish to fight from the front line or the back line?" question.

 

Two-hander, dual-wield, shield (i.e. the two ways people who fought for a living actually carried weapons, plus one we've rule-of-cooled in): easy to balance, easy to understand. What's not to love about that?

[gh0stwizard]

Pillars of Eternity already has too many weapons. Having to worry about damage types is aggravating, but even without that it's annoying to have to decide between deflection, DR piercing, accuracy, and damage versus speed. Just about the only actually interesting choice is for reach, but even that is just a "do you wish to fight from the front line or the back line?" question.

Try to play solo and you are forget this question: you are always on first line Also increase diffuculty. Try to play in small groups. And may be you will find that all weapon stats are important.

[Grand_Commander13]

Try to play solo and you are forget this question: you are always on first line Also increase diffuculty. Try to play in small groups. And may be you will find that all weapon stats are important.

I said that choosing between them was annoying, not inconsequential.

 

The problem is that there's always a right answer, and it's visible at the start of the fight: compare your accuracy to their deflection, your damage and DR reduction to their DR, and right there you can work out the optimum weapon to use on that enemy. It's a very tactical choice.

 

I'd prefer weapon choice to be more strategic, and with just three types you could much more easily balance them so all three play styles were equally (do you value outright damage, interrupts, or deflection more?). Of course you might want to switch over to another style because of a situational thing, but it would be because you, as a being very talented in using heuristics to make decisions, saw that this character just needed to out-endure this enemy so his teammates could finish his underlings off and flank him rather than "spreadsheet says to go for defense on this one."

[Zwiebelchen]

I don't think the number of weapons is too low. There are 10 ranged weapon types and 17 or more different melee weapon types.

 

More frustrating is the lack of meaningful variation. I personally don't feel like there's any difference between giving my warrior a battle axe and giving them a warhammer.

 

I'd actually prefer if there were fewer weapon types, but more differentiation between them.

 

I actually like that the difference between weapons matters, but is not as big as that it would lead to cookie-cutter choices in general.

 

We don't want to limit the RP'ing too much, don't we? I think Obsidian nailed the weapon design in this game in the way that I don't gimp my character when selecting an odd weapon choice for my class, but it also allows some min/maxing for the completionists.

 

Obvious examples: +accuracy weapons vs. +deflection weapons. Or armor penetrating weapons for low Might characters. There are plenty of tactical choices, but they won't turn combat upside down. And that's a good thing in my book.

 

If anything, you could argue that slow weapons are a bit too strong compared to faster weapons, as most enemies have high DR scores. But imho that's nitpicking. The faster ability recovery makes up for that mostly.

Edited April 9, 2015 by Zwiebelchen

[dirigible]

 

I don't think the number of weapons is too low. There are 10 ranged weapon types and 17 or more different melee weapon types.

 

More frustrating is the lack of meaningful variation. I personally don't feel like there's any difference between giving my warrior a battle axe and giving them a warhammer.

 

I'd actually prefer if there were fewer weapon types, but more differentiation between them.

 

I actually like that the difference between weapons matters, but is not as big as that it would lead to cookie-cutter choices in general.

 

We don't want to limit the RP'ing too much, don't we? I think Obsidian nailed the weapon design in this game in the way that I don't gimp my character when selecting an odd weapon choice for my class, but it also allows some min/maxing for the completionists.

 

Obvious examples: +accuracy weapons vs. +deflection weapons. Or armor penetrating weapons for low Might characters. There are plenty of tactical choices, but they won't turn combat upside down. And that's a good thing in my book.

 

If anything, you could argue that slow weapons are a bit too strong compared to faster weapons, as most enemies have high DR scores. But imho that's nitpicking. The faster ability recovery makes up for that mostly.

 

It could just be that I was playing on Normal, but I never found myself in a situation where I was compelled to switch weapons to face a certain enemy. Which, to me, means that weapons weren't differentiated enough.

 

I would rather the game go whole hog and do stuff like make skeletons completely 100% immune to slashing and piercing, or make jellies completely 100% immune to crushing. Because as is, while I might be doing less damage than I could, it's not enough for me to bother switching weapons (and spend 2 seconds on cooldown) for a fight that's probably going to end in 8 seconds whether I switch or not.

 

Maybe it's different on higher difficulties, I dunno.

[Zwiebelchen]

It definitely depends on your build and difficulty level. Due to the DR mechanics, low Might characters should use slow or penetrating weapons to actually deal any damage. But good luck using a fast 1H weapon with those...

Flails for example are great for low-Might tanks and deal way more damage than almost any other one-handed weapon for them. Axes are great for hard-hitting foes, but you will mostly deal minimum damage only.

 

I agree about the variety of damage types, though. Most of the enemies have pretty balanced damage resistances against all weapon types. There's just a few outliers that have heavily distorted damage resistances. There should be more, but imho, there's bigger fish to fry atm.

[dirigible]

Actually Might is pretty worthless for fast weapons. For the vast majority of them, each point of Might is worth less than half of a single point of damage.

 

Furthermore, fast weapons (and shotguns) are often surprisingly good against armored opponents. For example, an Exceptional Blunderbuss deals about 10 dmg x 6 per attack. That means it deals 12 damage MINIMUM on a full hit. Even if the enemy has 20 piercing DR, you're still going to deal 12 damage per attack, thanks to the MIN damage mechanic (no attack ever deals less than 20% full damage).

 

To put this into perspective, against an enemy with 40 Piercing DR, an exceptional Blunderbuss deals the same damage (per attack) as an Exceptional Arquebus.

Edited April 9, 2015 by dirigible

[eLPuSHeR]

I have always wondered why everyone is ambidextrous all of suden and without many limitations.

[Atheosis]

Huh, nearly every type of real life weapon is accounted for so I don't see how anyone could conclude there is a lack of weapon variety.

[dirigible]

Huh, nearly every type of real life weapon is accounted for so I don't see how anyone could conclude there is a lack of weapon variety.

WHERE MY FALCHIONS AT?

WHERE MY LUCERNES AT?

WHERE MY TRIDENTS AT?

 

TERRIBLE GAME, OBSIDIAN

0/10

[Wulfram]

I find the amount of weapon basic types pretty fine.

 

Though the whole slashing/piercing/blunt stuff I find rather boring.

[Caerdon]

I think the game has a good variety of weapons. I like that all weapons have their own small quirks, even if they're sometimes quite small indeed - or just seem completely arbitrary (like the deflection bonus of hatchets, of all weapons).

 

I hope Obsidian keeps balancing the weapons, despite all the crying that will ensue. For example, bows could use a little buff, and estocs are disproportionately good with that DR bypass of theirs.

 

It doesn't matter if you have 1948483948 different weapons if only 12 of them are actually viable.

 

All the weapons are perfectly viable.

[Luckmann]

I think the game has a good variety of weapons. I like that all weapons have their own small quirks, even if they're sometimes quite small indeed - or just seem completely arbitrary (like the deflection bonus of hatchets, of all weapons).

 

I hope Obsidian keeps balancing the weapons, despite all the crying that will ensue. For example, bows could use a little buff, and estocs are disproportionately good with that DR bypass of theirs.

 

It doesn't matter if you have 1948483948 different weapons if only 12 of them are actually viable.

 

All the weapons are perfectly viable.

 

Eh.. viable, sure. Perfectly viable? Nah.

 

I do agree that the game actually has a good variety of weapons, though, and it's great that all weapons have their own basic quirks - although some of those quirks are strange and sometimes arbitrary, and like you say, sometimes quite small indeed.

 

They definitely could use some work, especially when it comes to enchanting and such, and the unique versions of weapons somehow manages to feel both "lackluster" and "special snowflake" at the same time, which probably has something to do with how enchanting and modifiers work, too.

 

And I think it was a mistake to basically have the Fine/Exceptional/Superb modifiers as Enchantments, which to me really cheapens the whole idea. I think they should be intrinsic to the weapon itself, and not count towards some enchanting cap, similar to how weapons already get a basic quirk just depending on what kind of weapon it is.

 

But the game absolutely does not suffer from a small variety of weapons, no. The weapons are diverse and often interesting; it's just that the actual damage types often do not matter nearly enough, so you're never forced to change, and the game doesn't promote specialization in a specific kind of weapon, either. Preferably, the game should allow for both approaches.

[endruwiggin]

The only thing I miss is more unique weapons, like in Baldur's Gate II going to one of the first merchants he have things that cost a fortune and u'll be lucky to buy a couple in one playthrough (the merchant in the Adventurer Mart).

Or even found/forged items like carsomyr+100 vs evil, Lilacor the talking greatsword, and drizzt scimitars (I didn't kill him, he tripped into my sword!) ...

PoE have *some* unique attributes like faster attacking speed but they are not really *unique* thats the only thing I miss