A few ideas regarding weapons

[Ragni_Bross]

I've played quite a few different mods lately and having observed the animations and stats of certain weapons I got a few ideas.

A thing about pikes: Make them work like they do in Deluge. Give them a high stab and make them unable to block. Make them support weapons again. They were never meant to be the duellist's weapon of choice so you might as well fix it in terms of realism and balance. Pikes are huge and rather cumbersome so blocking with them would require a lot of space, time and strength and it'd be next to impossible to block a sword coming straight at your neck in time, if the assailant was standing right in front of you. Of course a situation like that would be very unlikely seeing as the pikeman could just let go of his pike and get out his sidearm, be that a katzenbalger (my German is a bit off) or perhaps just a heavy club.
      If you'd consider giving the pike another attack direction while making it unable to block a huge nerf, you could just make pikes cheaper! That'd make good sense as well. It's meant as a support weapon and just look at it! It's a piece of wood with a point attached to it. Pikes ought to be cheap and accessible. Make them so affordable that you can easily bring a sidearm for when it gets too close and personal and give them a high stab so as to boost their versatility and usefulness. Oh, one last thing: you should be able to brace your pike! It worked just great in Deluge and it's as realistic as it gets. It wouldn't be OP and it'd be a great way of realistically countering enemy horsemen. Bracing your pike would make you vulnerable to missile weapons, sure, but you could protect valuable choke points from enemy horsemen and force them to dismount.


A thing about halfswording: People hardly ever use the secondary 2h mode. Why is that? Because it sucks. It offers no advantages at all. Why not buff halfswording a bit and make it work like it should? Using a 2h sword's secondary mode limits your reach and robs you of an attack direction so why not let it give you a few bonuses as well?

I've picked up Napoleonic Wars recently and I came across some rather interesting new and old animations that you could use for halfswording. You could either give the secondary mode a high stab so it'd still have 4 attack directions or you could implement the "Murder stroke" so your character could bash his opponent in with his pommel and deal blunt damage. When you use the rifle's secondary mode in NW you'll notice that they've added a new high attack and I think that one could be nice for a devastating murder stroke


A thing about shields: (This has been suggested before) Shields should only protect what they cover. If you are using a buckler (Shame on you!) it should only block those arrows actually hitting the buckler. In Vikingr (That mod had the best combat system ever) you could easily get around and enemy's shield as an archer because it only protected what it actually covered. Making shields work like this would make larger shields useful and it would give missile weapons a very realistic buff. The board shields are all but useless 'cause their strength (their immense size) is superflous. Smaller shields can generate force fields around you and make the the larger, and often weaker, shields all but obsolete. I've spent much time on my shielder alt and it always annoyed me how those cowardly AGI-whores seemingly were able to catch every single arrow coming at them with their small bucklers. Bucklers don't and aren't meant to work like that. Some months ago I joined a historical weapons combat group and I've trained some sword & buckler fighting and one of the first things you must learn is that the buckler isn't a shield. It is simply too small to work like a shield. Oh well, I got sidetracked but what I'm suggesting is to nerf some shields in a realistic way and make sure that the larger shields aren't simply forgotten. Having shields work like this would add an additional layer of depth to being a shielder as you couldn't just pick "the perfect shield" but would have to find your own perfect balance between protection and speed.

[Bjord]

Realism =/= Balance

[dodnet]

If you remove block from pikes, no one would use them anymore. You would be instantly dead in close combat. As they are 3 slots you cant even have a secondary weapon besides some low polearms or 1h swords. Then blocking should also removed from small weapons like torch and all heavy weapons like hammers. Do you really want that?

[Ragni_Bross]

Realism =/= Balance

I don't see how any of these ideas would upset the balance rather than fix or restore it. In the first suggestion the pike loses the abillity to block but gets another attack direction. You'd be able to brace it against horsemen and it becomes cheaper. If it's too much of a nerf you could modify the stats, but I don't think that'd be necessary when people realize that it's mean for supporting and massing rather than spectacular stick-duels..

The thing about halfswording would be a buff but that is just what halfswording needs. It is useless as it is now and it does in no way increase your chances against armoured opponents as it should.

The thing about shields might be something of a nerf but I'd say that the shields that would get most affected by this are the ones deserving a nerf and on top of that people would start using a greater variety of shields.

[Ragni_Bross]

If you remove block from pikes, no one would use them anymore. You would be instantly dead in close combat. As they are 3 slots you cant even have a secondary weapon besides some low polearms or 1h swords. Then blocking should also removed from small weapons like torch and all heavy weapons like hammers. Do you really want that?

I wouldn't mind that really, but let's start with the pikes. You could let the pikes take up 2 slots instead of 3. I don't think that'd be so bad with the block-nerf.

The point of the pike isn't to be effective one on one but rather to be able to strike and distract enemies from a distance while your allies take care of them or leave them open so you can finish them yourself. You do not need to be able to block for this to work. You do need to be able to block, however, if you want to be able to use the pike as a duelling weapon. Giving it another attack direction, a realistic one at that, in exchange for the abillity to block should be a fair deal if you make it cheaper and braceable as well.

[[ptx]]

So, basically, fuck a playstyle.

[Ragni_Bross]

So, basically, fuck a playstyle.

Fuck the ridiculously unrealistic one and hello to a new improved one that makes sense. It seems people are stuck in the current cRPG. They can't imagine how it would be like if you tried to fix some of its issues. cRPG could use some drastic changes but people only look at numbers and get at each other's throats for not agreeing to change say the damage of a weapon by 1. The status quo is pleasing to some so therefore they'll be against any attempts to fix or improve it.

If daggers were able to block (that'd make more sense than pikes being able to block) and I used a dagger to block and kill 2handers would you call that a playstyle? Would you fight fervently and vehemently to protect it because fixing it would be fucking a playstyle?

[[ptx]]

Everything in this game is ridiculously unrealistic - glaive spamming, hiltslashing with greatswords, 2h stab, 1h swords cutting apart plated peeps. Pike as a duel weapon? What the fuck are you smoking?

[dodnet]

If you want realism you wouldn't be able to block with ANY weapon that has a wooden shaft like axes, hammers... because after the first or second blocking attempt the shaft would be broken and your weapon completely useless. And don't tell me you can stop an axe or an 2h sword with a fucking dagger in RL. It would chop of your hands, nothing more.

[Ragni_Bross]

Everything in this game is ridiculously unrealistic - glaive spamming, hiltslashing with greatswords, 2h stab, 1h swords cutting apart plated peeps. Pike as a duel weapon? What the fuck are you smoking?

I agree on everything you just said (apart from me having smoked anything). You have to start somewhere and think that somewhere should be the pike. I never meant that it's a good duel weapon but because you can stab people who are way too close to be stabbed, in terms of realism, by turning and angling you can easily dispose of lightly armoured and inexperienced opponents who expect the pike to be rather useless once you get past its point.

[[ptx]]

The thing is, in this game it takes next to no effort to get past the point of a long weapon (character movement, acceleration). And since the polearm stab hitboxes are fucked (have always been bugged, never fixed), it just goes through targets without hitting quite often. If it had the advantages of a RL pike, then, okay, give it the disadvantages as well. But it doesn't.

[Ragni_Bross]

If you want realism you wouldn't be able to block with ANY weapon that has a wooden shaft like axes, hammers... because after the first or second blocking attempt the shaft would be broken and your weapon completely useless. And don't tell me you can stop an axe or an 2h sword with a fucking dagger in RL. It would chop of your hands, nothing more.

I never said you could block a 2h sword with a dagger but you can certainly block smaller weapons with a dagger whereas a pike would be unable to block either of those at a close distance.

I never said that the pike should be unable to block due to its wooden shaft, blocking with a wooden shaft is indeed possible, but due to its sheer lenght and unwieldiness you simply can't get it in a position to block or deflect in time to stop incoming attacks at a close distance.

[Ragni_Bross]

The thing is, in this game it takes next to no effort to get past the point of a long weapon (character movement, acceleration). And since the polearm stab hitboxes are fucked (have always been bugged, never fixed), it just goes through targets without hitting quite often. If it had the advantages of a RL pike, then, okay, give it the disadvantages as well. But it doesn't.

That's why you'd need to stay at a distance, preferably behind your allies. Giving it a high stab might make it more difficult to get close as well. But why even have a pike in the mod then? It doesn't work like a pike, in fact it doesn't work at all, so why call it a pike? Pikes work great in Deluge and they can work great in cRPG with a little effort. You mentioned a 1v1 scenario where the pike would be at a greater disadvantage than in real life, but with some teamwork it might just work. Yes it might be difficult to fix it but I think it'd be worth it.

I find it rather funny, though, how all the comments have been about the first suggestion.

[bruce]

No way its awesome when pike stabs you from 2 inches away, yay.

[[ptx]]

Do you have greatswords/glaives/huscarl shields in Deluge?

Also, half-swording could use a change, i agree.

About shields, this was tried once, iirc. Didn't work out too well for a myriad of reasons.