Why Pistol is two hand?

[Cantousent]

I can see that point, Gairn, but I would think that having a pistol in your off hand wouldn't significantly detract from your balance. After all, you're not doing anything with it. You could even use it to parry, although you'd have to be pretty desperate to want to risk what would probably be a fairly rare commodity in such a manner. I don't really know much about real life match/wheel/flintlock pistols other than what I've read in popular fiction, which ain't much. ...But at least I can see *your* point in terms of current in game mechanics. Still, since switching weapon sets is straight forward in the game, you'd just be better off to get your one shot and switch to your melee set (assuming you don't have someone interceding to block the enemy.

 

However, the silliest thing is to dual wield a pistol and a shield. Perhaps, *perhaps,* and this is being charitable, you use the shield against missile weapons. ...But that entails taking a shot and then blocking a missile after which you would theoretically reload as best you can with the shield in your offhand? In that situation, you're better off using your offhand to steady your pistol for better accuracy. Fact is, using two hands on a modern day pistol, either hand over hand or hand over wrist, tends to have advantages in terms of shooting your target. Assuming you're not using the shield to block missiles, then you're using it in melee range? That means you're pistol whipping your opponent and blocking his sword/axe/spear/whatever with a shield? Insane. ...And you wouldn't get more than one shot because the idea you'd get off a shot and reload in time with a shield in your off-hand to get off even a second shot against someone closing against you quickly is a little absurd.

 

...But I've thought even the original poster was kind of posting tongue in cheek about dual wielding pistols in the game. I could be wrong of course, but I had that feeling.

 

Nevertheless, like a lot of threads, it does make serious points. I mean, I would clearly think that Infinitron and others (sorry, I forgot who first mentioned it) are right about cloaks and amulets. I figure it has to be either a balance thing or a technical thing. If it's balance, I think that's wrong minded. If it's technical, I hope they fix it. To make my position clear, it's not because I'm jonesin' to stack more gear on my ubermensch character. If more comes available, I'll stack away, but the main point is that it's non-sensical that we *can't* wear both. My goofy post about shoes is theoretically a valid point, but I think most folks recognize the silliness of trying to mix and match magical gloves and whatnot. ...And what if they do something that would really suck, like try to be realistic about boots, gloves, and armor fitting everyone who finds it?

[Zenbane]

I can see that point, Gairn, but I would think that having a pistol in your off hand wouldn't significantly detract from your balance. After all, you're not doing anything with it. You could even use it to parry

I'm pretty sure if someone used a pistol to parry any of the weapons in this game (Great Sword, Pike, etc)... that they would get their face smashed in. If PoE does allow people to use Pistols to parry in the future, then the attacker should get a bonus to Critical Strike lol

[Cantousent]

I dunno, Zen, there are weapons smaller than greatswords in the game. If it comes to that, using a rapier to parry a greatsword is probably going to hurt in much the same way. lol I can see having a special talent called 'pistol whipping' or some such. How to use your pistol as an effective melee weapon. Forget sword and board. I'll take pistol and tower shield for the win! ...And what it lacks in reach it makes up for in panache!

[Gairnulf]

If we're thinking realistically, a weapon set where the player is dual wielding pistols should mean that that player gets off two shots and then can't reload either pistol. Even this sounds like an interesting choice to have though - a very strong opening strike coming at the cost of 2 or 3 sec recovery when you are forced to switch weapon sets.

 

The pistol is sort of a peculiar weapon among ranged weapons in its naturally being a one-handed weapon but requiring both hands to reload. The other ranged weapons are all two-handed weapons which also need both hands to be reloaded, so faced with development time constraints, I understand why Obsidian made the decision to just have the pistol behave like a two-handed weapon instead of going through the process of implementing, testing, bugfixing, and balancing stuff that's only relevant to one type of weapon - the ranged one-handed weapon.

 

The same applies to what I'm suggesting in my last post - I understand that if people had the option to have strong opening strike and then carry on with combat with their cold steel weapon, without suffering the added weapon slot switch delay, then this might potentially make a pistol&cold steel weapon slot have higher DPS than an arquebus weapon slot, due to the time needed to switch from an arquebus to a cold steel-only slot. I hope I'm not being too unclear.

 

Plus, you are correct, that a more realistic representation of having a pistol&cold steel weapon would be putting them each in separate slots, but according to the game's rules this wouldn't be an accurate representation of this weapon setup because 1. weapon slots are intentionally limited in the game already, and 2. the weapon slot switch animation would still apply, while it naturally shouldn't if a combatant just fires off a shot, puts the pistol in its holster and carries on fighting with a cold steal weapon he already has in his hand.

 

Then maybe I could revise my proposal like this -- switching from a pistol weapon slot to any other weapon slot shouldn't cause the usual recovery delay.

 

Anyway, it seems there is no way to represent the pistol correctly without it having some unique features among the other ranged weapons. I hope this is something they manage to do in PoE2.

Edited November 3, 2015 by Gairnulf

[aweigh0101]

poe 2 : noscope edition

[Gairnulf]

How very unimaginative aweigh. You have to be among the worst attempts at pretending to be trolling around here

[Oralaina]

Heh.  Interesting thread.  We use black powder guns - both pistol and rifle - and we don't use the "modern" version.  The game actually does a really good job of "explicating" the difficulty, not to mention the TIME, involved in shooting, and then reloading from scratch.... before being able to shoot again.

 

Now, I have to say that given the real firepower of a bow in this game, I don't ever bother with the guns.  But I LOVE that the devs got the whole gun thing right.  IRL, I prefer killing an elk with a modern rifle - better percentage of clean one-shot kills for instance; but I also understand and appreciate the viability of stalk and kill at close range with bow - or black powder.

 

Believe me - stalking an elk to close range, and making a kill with a bow or black powder gun.... THAT is a thrill.  I'm privileged to have accomplished that a few times in my life.  But that's not why I play a game.  I play games like this to explore, adventure....  Still, I give the devs MAD props that they didn't go the John Wayne route with guns.

[aweigh0101]

ok, i'll join the discussion then.

you know what poe really needs for its guns? 

a-m-m-o.

it doesn't have to be Arcanum-level convulted, or a retread of Fallout : New Vegas' ammo system. quite the missed opportunity IMO; rarity of materials and know-how of salt-peter and gun-powder chemistry would naturally lead to ammo not being that plentiful, and guns being more serious. not a single NPC in the game even makes a passing remark about the booming Eora gun industry, or their awesome repeating reloaders sported in every blunderbuss, and such things kind of matter.

plus who doesn't want to play around with magical ammo EHH +1 iron musket ball w/ 15% chance of critical failure and ruining the chamber. hell yes! make guns deadly, and important, and something more integrated into the lives of the people in the game world. 

when a suspiciously lackwit farmer in a self-professed "slowly dying" town-village called dyrford village; a village farmer whose most prized possesions are a few pigs (legit, it is food) gets pigs stolen by the "local Ogre" gives you an incredibly complex mechanistic firing apparatus, the lead-spitter, like it was a freaking trading card. what happened that guns were so prevalent? nothing about the many, MANY details on the saint's war even mention the word gun IIRC. they do mention the word "bomb", of course, i.e. Durance.

why does this poor farmer in a dying town situated in a pathway that's becoming obsolete for merchant trade give away willy-nilly an indisputably expensive object, that even if he wouldn't use he could easily sell?  for a few rescued pigs?

i take issue with that small example, and with the broader point of the "gun lore". the entire game is a lazy patische of a few good ideas, a small bit of GENIUS ideas, and an over-abundance of lazy and half-assed ideas designed half-assedly and implemented only slightly better.

i would gladly give my opinions and some short critiques of the writing, but that would be another thread. the writing is bland, and most of the time amateurish. stand-out pieces of narrative like durance, GM stand out even more because of this. not saying oh avellone the genius as always, obviously, but it's the first time his contributions literally stand out like a sore thumb in comparison to the rest of the drab writing and characterizations and world-building.

i think obsidian's creative peak was fallout: new vegas, and it boasts a much more complex and incredibly, INCREDIBLY well thought out implementation of multiple systems, design ideas, characters and narrative and most importantly a coherent world that reacts to itself.

it's why i didn't take this thread seriously, because the guns themselves are so downright boringly implemented in the game i can't believe they're even worth talking about as actually legitimate in some way other than boosting char DPS for builds lolderp. but i empathize with the OP, when i was a teen i couldn't get enough of dual wielding swords. i would only play games that let me dual wield swords.

and also, if there is a highly refined gun manufacture pipeline in this bit of eoras why the HELL don't we see the factual ramifications that the gunpowder era brought along? gunpowder changed the world. the closest they get to this is with durance's bomb, which btw i think is 100% the most interesting bit of "lore" in the entire game. a domestic, fanatical zealout committing terrorism not for his personal beliefs but for the beliefs of quantifiable powers of godlike nature. the end-game goes into this topic, but the game itself never even lets use talk about the cool stuff.

where are the mortars? where are the cannons? where are the mass, MASS graves for the player to visit, the huge graveyards that the type of rifles and pistols in the game brought to battles? where are the psychological impacts registered in the game? the civil war was the progenitor of the modern american psychiatric industry, speficically because of the trauma the soldiers experienced in this "new kind" of warfare, with cannons and riflemen  and mortars and and the odd repeater to be found here and there, decimating dozens of men in seconds. it completely broken them. that's where the term post-trauama and stress disorders came from.

and you know what? the worst thing is implementing dr penetration on these firearms. that type of shot would be more akin to concussive or downright piercing. 

tldr i hope poe 2 has ammo system of some sort, and better crafting. should be good 10/10 would rant again

Edited November 4, 2015 by aweigh0101

[Cantousent]

Good Lord, Aweigh, you clever bastard, that was a good read. Two things though: a whole bunch of quest rewards are goofy in the same way. In the same way, dual wielding pistols would be okay for the same reason, but you've got to draw the line somewhere. For my part, I wish they hadn't included firearms, but it does have a real Darklands feel to it. To be clear, that's good. As for ammo... What you said.

[Gairnulf]

I agree Firearms could have been implemented better. I guess that's the best Obsidian had time and budget for, and hope they improve them in PoE2.

 

Ranged weapons ammo is something I've requested more than once, including in the Beta.

 

Now that you say this regarding the pistol coming as a reward from the farmer, it's true. Ironically, people are also complaining about rewards from quests that feel too insignificant.

 

You are right about the feeling of novelty of firearms and artillery being underplayed in the game's lore. You are also right about the curious absence of cannons of various shapes and sizes. After all smaller firearms began to be developed later than the larger artillery pieces.

 

Judging by the designs of fortress walls, defense structures design in the Dyrwood hasn't yet responded to the introduction of artillery, like it responded in Italy by the 1540s with the "trace italienne" fortress design. We can attribute that to the Free Palatinate being relatively backwards in fortification technology. If we get to see the Vailian republics in PoE2 however, there better be star fort-designed strongholds there.

 

BTW, do you have a reference about the Dyrwood in particular having a "booming gun industry"?

 

where are the psychological impacts registered in the game? the civil war was the progenitor of the modern american psychiatric industry, speficically because of the trauma the soldiers experienced in this "new kind" of warfare, with cannons and riflemen and mortars and and the odd repeater to be found here and there, decimating dozens of men in seconds. it completely broken them. that's where the term post-trauama and stress disorders came from.

I think you are asking for too much here. In 16th c. wars there was no treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, and the medical knowledge as far as I'm aware (read: I haven't researched) hadn't identified it as a problem. Armies were, in general, not conscripted but composed of volunteers who were in it, on the whole, for the pay and the loot.

 

If we are going to analyze the realism with which PoE represents the equivalent of 16th c. warfare, there is a question that should be asked far before asking "where are the cannons" and this is "where are the horses". The early 16th c. was the period where the cavalry was dwindling in importance and the pike & shot infantry was rising. People with military knowledge in the game would comment on that trend if they have a chance.

[Infinitron]

The 16th century also didn't have rifles. This is The Three Musketeers, not The Last Samurai.

 

You know, aweigh, I'm beginning to think you aren't being sincere about liking this game.

Edited November 4, 2015 by Infinitron

[Yipikayey]

Dual weilding pistols as some sort of stronger "alpha strike" is not true. Yes you could theorically shoot twice, but aiming well with a pistol (even modern pistols) requires two hands. You would require very low weight/small pistols to be able to do that, and flintlocks aren't that small, and there goes your alpha strike.

 

It's the same reason why i don't like dual weilding melee weapons in most games, because they use the weapons individually stupidly, when you would gain more distance and able to do the same with just one handed weapon. That doesn't mean that dual weilding is not possible, it's just it doesn't work like video games represent it. Same with 2handed weapons to be honest.

Edited November 4, 2015 by Yipikayey

[aweigh0101]

infintron, i'm playing it right now. i alt-tabbed from my power-gaming to check the game's forums. yeah, i think i like it well enough. i enjoy its combat a lot, and it is very mathematically pleasing if such a thing is an appropriate compliment for a game. the rest of the thing? ehhh i can take it or leave it. sure is fun making party builds tho, and for my money it's the best rtwp i've ever played. just don't tell sensuki i said that.

[Gairnulf]

Dual weilding pistols as some sort of stronger "alpha strike" is not true. Yes you could theorically shoot twice, but aiming well with a pistol (even modern pistols) requires two hands. You would require very low weight/small pistols to be able to do that, and flintlocks aren't that small, and there goes your alpha strike.

 

It's the same reason why i don't like dual weilding melee weapons in most games, because they use the weapons individually stupidly, when you would gain more distance and able to do the same with just one handed weapon. That doesn't mean that dual weilding is not possible, it's just it doesn't work like video games represent it. Same with 2handed weapons to be honest.

Modern-day techniques for firing handguns to achieve an optimal combination of speed and accuracy only began to emerge after WWII. This includes the use of two hands when firing a pistol or a revolver. Up to the mid 20th century people used to aim with one hand when firing pistols, adopting a traditional sports shooting posture. That excludes the instinctive shooting technique, which uses the posture currently known as the Mexican Crouch but would still use only one hand. It's an anachronism to expect Early Modern times' shooters to use both hands for aiming with a pistol.

 

In the 16th century pistols were still very expensive and were used almost exclusively in the cavalry. They would be fired at point blank range and using one hand, the other one holding the horse's reins. Pistols used to weigh 1.7-2kg, which is light enough to be comfortably fired with one hand. They would usually be carried in pairs, in holsters in front of the saddle.

 

So, I don't agree that the alpha strike with dual pistols would be unrealistic. Although it would make more sense for an infantryman to have a cold steel weapon in one hand and take out and fire two pistols (if he has two pistols) in succession, using the same hand. If you hold a pistol in each hand, you'd have to either throw one on the ground, to take out your cold steel weapon (a bad idea, because that gun is expensive and you'll damage it), or put it back in its holster and take out the cold steel weapon from its sheath (slower).

 

So, I guess it would make more sense, if you're at point blank range, to have a cold steel weapon in one hand, but the pistols' weight wouldn't prevent you from firing off two accurate shots at point blank range, one from each hand.

 

I'm a bit of a 16th Century warfare geek. It stuck on me from university, and from working on an EUIV mod

Edited November 4, 2015 by Gairnulf

[MunoValente]

For me if you want to fire off multiple guns, that is what extra weapon slots are for.  One thing that could be interesting to do with pistols though is make changing to and from pistol weapon slots faster than crossbows or bigger guns

[PrimeJunta]

I think it'd be cool if you could carry a brace of pistols. Currently you can sort of kind of build a character around this (e.g. island aumaua with extra weapon slot and quick switch talent), but it's really fiddly to play as you have to manually switch after every shot. It'd be better if they switched automatically after every shot. 

 

Ideally this'd need a bit more work, since historically people might carry up to six or so strapped to their chest. Like having each weapon slot count for two small weapons (pistol, dagger, stiletto, hatchet) but that would probably be tricky to do while keeping the UI reasonably sane so maybe not worth the trouble.

[BustinJay]

Actually, I like the concept of being able to dual wield pistols. Yes, you need two hands to reload, but there's also such a thing as a holster. You could have them in a chest rig if you really didn't care about the safety of others, or just at your sides. The animation would show them aiming and firing them one at a time, since they would of course be impractical to fire at the same time. I think this would add an interesting gameplay element, since now there's a new tradeoff. Using two pistols means you get two powerful ranged attacks in quick succession, but the reload time is very long.

 

Firing them with one hand is perfectly doable, assuming you aren't firing ridiculous hand cannons, and combat encounters take place well within a reasonable range to be accurate while using such a method.

 

It's really not as impractical as it sounds. Dual wielding pistols is only impractical in modern times since we have detachable and quick changing magazines that hold 17+ self contained rounds, as opposed to a flintlock or caplock that holds 1 or 2 (sometimes more, but not by much) internally and the charge has to be manually loaded. We no longer need to make any tradeoffs to have multiple quick shots while sacrificing accuracy and recoil stability. Having those two quick shots would be great if you lived in a time where that was all the current technology allowed.

[Stoner]

That thread takes me back to one of the older discussions, where I've been pretty confused about how Wizard use his spirit power (probably muscles really) to increase damage of his spell. That fallen into rather ridiculous and funny discussion. Eventually it got down to:

"Why pistols are affected by spirit strength of individual? Why Might affects damage directly?"

 

So, to the guys who are trying to imply real life physics logic to the game, please stop... In regards to game system design, any pushover who possesses high spiritual strength can operate any weapons or magic with outstanding power, slicing Dragons in half with one swing of rusted toothpick. So, following that logic I wouldn't wonder if the same person can shoot flintlock and even blunderbuss while holding it in one hand with zero recoil and reload guns on the fly with no effort.

 

So yes, I wonder too why we don't have dual wield pistols.