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cRPG => General Discussion => Topic started by: Angantyr on April 19, 2014, 12:32:46 pm

Title: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: Angantyr on April 19, 2014, 12:32:46 pm
Why is halberd not four-directional? Is this for balance reasons? Makes no sense to have pole weapons like halberds (and billhook and long voulge) with big cutting surfaces not be wielded with side-swings as they were historically (though overheads and stabs were common they are essentially very large axes).

And why is the flamberge zweihänder two-handed when it uses polearm animations except for the grip in idle position which for some reason is two-handed so it looks like some monstrosity out of World of Warcraft, the character holding it in the most awkward, unrealistic way possible?


Thank you for your time.
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: Austrian on April 19, 2014, 12:44:22 pm
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Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: Joseph Porta on April 19, 2014, 12:47:52 pm
I guess they would be considered OP with that weapon length.
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: Teeth on April 19, 2014, 12:51:35 pm
I think we need a long four-directional polearm, it would fill a niche style of play that isn't really filled by the Glaive. Long Voulge four-directional please. It should be slow as hell, average damage. Make it bad for all I care, as long as it is more viable than the Scythe.
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: Kafein on April 19, 2014, 02:39:11 pm
I think we need a long four-directional polearm, it would fill a niche style of play that isn't really filled by the Glaive. Long Voulge four-directional please. It should be slow as hell, average damage. Make it bad for all I care, as long as it is more viable than the Scythe.

The problem with such a weapon design is that no matter how slow it is it will hit just as fast as any other weapon if it gets a damage value fitting a long weapon. Warband's balancing logic seems to be that longer means more damage. The problem is that high damage allows hitting early and slow swings are more controllable, making the task of hiltslashing with it even easier than with say a glaive.

Hence why to avoid "slow" weapons ending up being not slow, they should not get good damage.
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: Dark_Blade on April 19, 2014, 03:18:13 pm
I think we need a long four-directional polearm, it would fill a niche style of play that isn't really filled by the Glaive. Long Voulge four-directional please. It should be slow as hell, average damage. Make it bad for all I care, as long as it is more viable than the Scythe.
in hands of some players such as you, Chase and some others even the slowest weapon becomming faster than the fastest ...
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: San on April 19, 2014, 07:39:35 pm
Sure, it's worth a suggestion at least for the 4D polearms. Polearm overhead speed makes it compete with side swings. There's also a ton of long 2D polearms to choose from.

Flamberge, I don't know. I think people like to look cool.
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: Tydeus on April 20, 2014, 01:07:19 am
And why is the flamberge zweihänder two-handed when it uses polearm animations except for the grip in idle position which for some reason is two-handed so it looks like some monstrosity out of World of Warcraft, the character holding it in the most awkward, unrealistic way possible?
First of all, it uses the two-handed right swing animation. Secondly, no one's going to make custom animations for a single weapon, or at least they haven't yet. So there are no, more appropriate, alternatives to use.
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: Lemon on April 20, 2014, 01:12:36 am
First of all, it uses the two-handed right swing animation. Secondly, no one's going to make custom animations for a single weapon, or at least they haven't yet. So there are no, more appropriate, alternatives to use.

khyber knife
gf
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: Rhaelys on April 20, 2014, 09:01:11 am
Flamberge really just needs a reduction in price to about 17k. Same thing with the poleaxes, all three could easily drop by 1k in price.

Bring back 4D on the long voulge, drop the speed to 80. If it seems to be too powerful, drop the swing damage by a point or two later.
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: Angantyr on April 20, 2014, 04:51:54 pm
First of all, it uses the two-handed right swing animation. Secondly, no one's going to make custom animations for a single weapon, or at least they haven't yet. So there are no, more appropriate, alternatives to use.
Sure, I forgot about the right swing animation. But I'm not thinking about custom animations, more along the lines of just having polearm grip for idling (and running).

Bring back 4D on the long voulge
Halberd and billhook, too, please.
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: Penitent on April 21, 2014, 05:48:31 am
Isn't the fauchard thing a long 4d pole arm?
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: Johammeth on April 21, 2014, 07:19:21 am
Fauchard also has the distinction of owning the most preposterous "hey now your thrusts do pierce damage" spike in the game.
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: Teeth on April 21, 2014, 10:53:26 am
Isn't the fauchard thing a long 4d pole arm?
Yes, but it has laughable cut damage and very high speed, which makes it gay instead of manly.

The problem with such a weapon design is that no matter how slow it is it will hit just as fast as any other weapon if it gets a damage value fitting a long weapon. Warband's balancing logic seems to be that longer means more damage. The problem is that high damage allows hitting early and slow swings are more controllable, making the task of hiltslashing with it even easier than with say a glaive.

Hence why to avoid "slow" weapons ending up being not slow, they should not get good damage.
While it is obviously true that high damage weapons can deal damage earlier, I think you are greatly overstating the issue. Perhaps this is due your tendency to play fully naked, which allows any weapon to nearly insta-hit, however with armour this is less the case. Speed rating trumps damage when it comes to quickness of attacks. A Long Maul is still a very slow weapon, it's hiltslashes are simply nowhere near as fast as a fast lower damage weapon like a Hafted Blade, at least against more than 20 body armour. A Longsword hiltslashes faster than a Great Maul. Besides, I would recommend Glaive range damage anyway for this type of weapon, only then while having like 75-80 speed, being unbalanced, but having 15 more length. Hardly OP, but I so want to play with it.
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: Kafein on April 21, 2014, 11:37:03 am
Yes, but it has laughable cut damage and very high speed, which makes it gay instead of manly.
While it is obviously true that high damage weapons can deal damage earlier, I think you are greatly overstating the issue. Perhaps this is due your tendency to play fully naked, which allows any weapon to nearly insta-hit, however with armour this is less the case. Speed rating trumps damage when it comes to quickness of attacks. A Long Maul is still a very slow weapon, it's hiltslashes are simply nowhere near as fast as a fast lower damage weapon like a Hafted Blade, at least against more than 20 body armour. A Longsword hiltslashes faster than a Great Maul. Besides, I would recommend Glaive range damage anyway for this type of weapon, only then while having like 75-80 speed, being unbalanced, but having 15 more length. Hardly OP, but I so want to play with it.

Believe it or not, I have a level 31 2h alt with 69 body armor which I played regularly. My experience is that increasing armor rating reinforces the superiority of long and powerful weapon over fast weapons when it comes to hiltslashing. In general I would prefer a longsword over a great bardiche, but if my goal is to hiltslash more easily and do more damage each time I do, I'd always go with the bardiche. Speed rating actually becomes more important with weapons that are too weak to hiltslash with.
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: Teeth on April 21, 2014, 11:44:44 am
Believe it or not, I have a level 31 2h alt with 69 body armor which I played regularly. My experience is that increasing armor rating reinforces the superiority of long and powerful weapon over fast weapons when it comes to hiltslashing. In general I would prefer a longsword over a great bardiche, but if my goal is to hiltslash more easily and do more damage each time I do, I'd always go with the bardiche. Speed rating actually becomes more important with weapons that are too weak to hiltslash with.
I know you do. Critical here is the difference between a Longsword and a Great Bardiche, which is -9 speed and +10 cut. Which perhaps might lead to more efficient hiltslashing damage to speed ratio wise, though I wouldn't even dare claim it to be faster or easier. The weapon that I would propose would be about -30 speed and about +3 cut. Nobody is proposing a 50 cut Looney Toons Axe and it's not gonna hiltslash fast.
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: Tydeus on April 21, 2014, 04:12:33 pm
There are so many factors you guys are leaving out in this discussion.  :rolleyes:
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: SP1N on April 21, 2014, 06:28:19 pm
Tydeus, grant us commoners the wonders of damage notifications, pls. Even if just in duel server.
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: Bars on April 21, 2014, 06:45:04 pm
I dunno why, but all 2h fighters have same fight style. Swing from left, run, thrust, hit from right and left, run, thrust hit. Its almost every fight so. Hate it! Do u know? if u block his swing, and try get him with left or right swing, u cant get him, while he run away, and make thrust hit in same time as u...and u get damage.  :evil: If i hadded long voulge , they couldnt run away! Shielders wasnt for me problem, but 1h fighters was. 2h wasnt for me problem, but 2h spamm like Khorin style was. And vs polearm fighter...it was boring fight, u must run away and get him with length u weapon.

So wich problem u haved with Long Voulge? To get my unique style with it, i needed 4 months of continuous training. U see, i dont use chambers, kicks. Whyle its useless. If u have such slow weapon as Voulge or maul, u enemy can block u hits after kick or chamber. 

Sry for my bad english  :mrgreen:
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: Jona on April 21, 2014, 06:47:43 pm
Tydeus, grant us commoners the wonders of damage notifications, pls. Even if just in duel server.

Not sure if it was just a glitch, but one time I was in Jack1's new event server and had damage notifications popping up. It was pretty handy, though I am not 100% sure if it was accurate (I mean, I can't exactly check it on an official server). The damage values seemed reasonable though... my 44 cut, 6 PS, 8 ath speed bonus long axe dealt 18-22 damage against a medium-armored foe. Assuming that damage dealt = hit points lost, this makes sense, since most medium armored enemies die in 3-4 hits... 3 hits meaning that I deal anywhere from 54 to 66 damage, which corresponds to someone with minimal IF but a decent amount of strength. Still, no reason that such a thing should be withheld from us (at least on a practice server).
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: San on April 21, 2014, 07:22:42 pm
If you're high enough admin and press 'B', there's a decent chance it'll work even on unofficial servers.
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: Teeth on April 21, 2014, 07:26:51 pm
There are so many factors you guys are leaving out in this discussion.  :rolleyes:
Feel free to enlighten us after you are done making the Long Voulge four-directional.
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: San on April 21, 2014, 07:31:22 pm
We're waiting on certain EU players to vote :)
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: Tydeus on April 21, 2014, 10:33:17 pm
Feel free to enlighten us after you are done making the Long Voulge four-directional.
Well then...

You can't talk about how effective a weapon's damage value will be, unless you have a target armor value. I was just saying yesterday, that a difference of 19 raw damage on my swings, was only amounting to a difference of 2 final damage, 42-61 raw -> 4-6 final. Now of course, I ended up with a rather poor roll on the 61 raw swing, and good rolls on the hits with lower raw, which makes things seem worse than they really are. Nonetheless, this is a good example of why the weapon's damage value can never provide the whole picture.

Then you have weapon speed, which is indeed highly important, but it's still directly related to damage output. This is relevant, because certain damage values allow you to hit further outside of a sweetspot than others. When up against 70+ armor, hitting outside of your sweetspot with a low to medium cut damage weapon, tends to be a bad idea with many builds. Likely, the main reason the bastard sword is generally favored below either the longsword or heavy bastard sword, is due to the low base damage value. That is, you reach certain thresholds in speed and damage, where trading damage for speed(or speed for damage) becomes less beneficial. When you take WPF into consideration, that lower speed weapons see larger changes in effective speed from wpf, in comparison to higher speed weapons, you further convolute the relation between weapon speed and damage. Not only must you consider the tradeoffs between speed and damage on the weapon, you have to do it for the character build as well.

Next, you have sweetspots and animations. What people don't realize with sweetspots, is that your weapon can fall both within and outside of the sweetspots, on the same exact frame. Why is this? First some info on what sweetspots are, for horizontal swings. Sweetspots are the angles between the attacking player's forward vector and the vector that passes through the contact point(location of the bone hit) with the attacking player's location as its origin, where damage first becomes possible, reaches full damage potential, begins to decrease again, and then reaches zero. Now, here are two pictures to help give an idea as to why this can be.

(click to show/hide)
(click to show/hide)

Now, the two circles are the closest and farthest points that you can hit someone. The red lines are the vectors that would be created using the contact point, and the blue line(which should actually be straight in front of the character), is just a static vector used to find the angle that figures out where in the sweetspot a hit will fall. Notice anything peculiar about these animations yet? What if I told you the 2h animation was at 38% progression, and the polearm animation was at 36%, and you can even (probably) hit as early as 28%, due to the hit "bar" always extending from the right hand.

But why's this matter for hilt slashing? Well, how much does weapon speed actually matter when you can potentially hit 10% earlier in the animation, regardless of the weapon's speed to damage ratio? Really, I'm not sure there's a clear best weapon or best damage/speed relation among our current weapons. Only the best in a specific setting.
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: Jona on April 21, 2014, 11:35:21 pm
Feel free to enlighten us after you are done making the Long Voulge four-directional.

"Enlightenment."

Confirmed: long voulge now 4-directional.
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: Angantyr on April 22, 2014, 01:15:42 pm
.. and bill and halberd.
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: WITCHCRAFT on April 22, 2014, 05:16:01 pm
Personally, I like that we have 2D polearms that favor overheads rather than thrusts. It adds more variety and allows a different playstyle compared to a long awlpike or ashwood pike. If any of them were changed to 4D, the swing damage would need to be greatly reduced, even if the speed was lowered. Fauchard, long hafted blade, glaive, and great long bardiche already offer plenty of variety in the "long 4D polearm" category.

Hmm, what if they had an alternate mode with 4D polearm animations and reduced speed/damage compared to 2D mode? Can that be done?
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: Tydeus on April 22, 2014, 05:21:29 pm
Hmm, what if they had an alternate mode with 4D polearm animations and reduced speed/damage compared to 2D mode? Can that be done?
That is certainly an option.
Title: Re: Two questions on weapon animations
Post by: Angantyr on April 24, 2014, 12:05:26 am
Nice idea.