Ait, this post may be a bit ambitious, but here goes my thoughts.
I strongly feel that armors and weapons in c-rpg could be utilized better and have more interesting stats. The main reason for this is that we have a lot of weapons, but only a fraction are much-used by players, as they at some point always tend to fall down on the agreed top weapons.
(lolswords, bec, elegant polaxe, top 1h axe, spamitar, hammer, or 2-3 top 1h swords. Of course you also have special-use weps like lolhammers, pikes and such.)
Another reason is that I would like to see more variety in playstyles, and see more "specialized" players. If more players become specialized, there will be more players specializing to take them out, and thus perhaps-perhaps more tactics on the battlefield.
WEAPONS IN GENERALMy thought is to try and make every weapon feel and act as unique as possible, with clear advantages and disadvantages. It should be a hard choice of pro's and con's to choose what weapon to get. I say get, not buy, because price have very little to do with balance.
(You can argue after patch etc etc, but even after that there will be movements, into better or worse equipment. It's not a self-balancing system keeping the amount of money in c-rpg at a fixed rate, economy-wise. It will grow and everyone will get richer, or we will all eventually end up with exactly the same amount of money, kinda like communism! BURN chadz THE COMMUNIST! :-)
So basically, every wep should have a clear "thought" behind it, and that thought should be visible in it's stats.
I.ex a sword of Tears should perhaps stab really well, but it's cut-damage should be far far worse.
A cookies should have better cut, but crappier stab than it currently has.
A longsword should perhaps be simply well all-round, do less pierce than Tears, and less cut that Cookies, but more of the opposite, as well as more speed to make up for the lack of range.
I tried making several graphs to show you what I think, but found it very hard, because the stats pull in 5 dimensions..
* Speed
* Range
* Thrust
* Cut
* Blunt
In addition to this you have animation nerfs/bonuses like spamby thrust and spear+shield and requirements, some weps are 2h+1h etc etc. Anyway, let me explain in a simplified way, how things are now:
BAD/CHEAP========================================================================GOOD/EXPENSIVE
POLEARMS
Pitchfork ================================================================> Elegant Poleaxe/Bec
2H WEPS
Practice Longsword =========================================================> Flambie/Tears/Cookies
1H WEPS
I don't know anything about those, but they seem to be the most specialized weapon group. 1 for spamitar for cloth, 1 hammer for tin-cans, 1 axe for shields, and 1-3 All-rounders. That's 4-7 of 60 options.
An easy way to implement what I'm suggesting is to make every wep a bit more "extreme" so that there are less all-rounders, and more "compromise-type" weapons.
I.ex: 1H Hammers (blunt 1h)
1 is fast and long with little damage
2 is fast and short with a lot of damage
3 is slow and long with a lot of damage
4 is slow and short with much more damage
For 1h axes, swords, and picks, repeat the exercise. (That would count up to 16 "equally good" weps, fill in the gaps with minor adjustments, perhaps 1 hammer have a stab/thrust/or pierce-stab option etc. Price and requirements should be kept out of the equation. Unless requirements get more involved, more about that further down.)
Make a similar but slightly less powerful group for the 1h+2h weapons. (versatility should cost performance)
For 2h swords its more complex than 1h hammers because many have both cut and pierce options. (using bad-medium-good-great here..)
1a. fast and short, great pierce, bad cut
1b. fast and short, bad pierce, great cut
2a. fast and long, medium pierce, bad cut
2b. fast and long, bad pierce, medium cut
3a. slow and long, great pierce, bad cut
3b. slow and long, bad pierce, great cut
4a. short and slow, good pierce, great cut
4b. short and slow, great pierce, good cut
That's 8 "archetypes" of the extremes for the classic 2h swords. The archetypes should be stronger than the all-rounders, (because versatility is performance.)
I dunno how to make 3d graphs, but in general:
Range and Speed and Damage (Pierce/Cut/Blunt/Attack Directions) should always come up to 0 Zero for all weapons.There should be no Elite OMG REALLY EXPENSIVE type weapons. (There can be prices, but they should mostly be connected to looks&size)
REQUIREMENTS FOR WEAPONSFirst all of that, and now all this to throw into the equation..
No1. Like with prices, requirements should not influence the "goodness" of a weapon. It's just a question of level=time. (almost..)
Basically I could see requirements playing a bigger role. Perhaps some weapons would require AGI in stead of STR to be used?
Anyway, STR requirements should be upped a notch in general. Now there is nothing stopping myself picking up a flamby with my 18STR and 31 Agi. (lvl 40 but none the less.. With 200 2h wpf, as well as 140 throwing, this is OP.) This also goes even more for armors, but that I will post a new post for..
A good example of a requirement-type weapon would be one of the heaviest axes:
"HEAVY POLEARM AXE"
Requirement 24 STR
Length: 125
SwingDamage: 55 (!)
Speed Rating: 70(!)
thrust damage 15 blunt
Nowadays, an AGI-pumping freak with 15 str can use the following:
Great Long Axe
weight 3.5
difficulty 14
spd rtng 92
weapon length 125
swing damage 46 cut
thrust damage 15 blunt
STR requirements could be a way to ensure that AGI/WPF doesn't get abused to get lightning-speed super-heavy weapons. (As has been witnessed..) To give the heavy weapons back their charm, they could have a damage bonus..
Anyway.. tired now time to go to sleep! Let me know your thoughts :-)
