Equipment buff suggestion.

[Tydeus]

Buff the unused/underused pieces of equipment (both armor and weapons). Peasant gear needs a buff! Peasants will be shit even if you give them a flamberge or a poleaxe, 1PS is still 1 PS, buff the weapons so that you increase the possible viability of items in game. It's not like having more types of effective gear is ever going to be a bad thing. The worst thing you can do, from a game design aspect, is limit player creativity and options. Why must the quarter staff glance on every type of metallic armor? Seriously, why does the short bow have to be such a useless piece of shit weapon?

Buff them, because nothing bad can come from meager buffs, but at least you will be increasing the possibility of more types of equipment becoming viable. More options, more fun, that's how I see it.

[Pentecost]

I agree with the sentiment behind this, Tydeus, but can you provide an actual list of what weapons your proposed buffs would encompass? It would help in discussing your suggestion in greater detail.

[IR_Kuoin]

Weak weapons are there for a reason.

[Zox_Fury]

Yeah what is the interest to have nice stuff if "low lvl"equipement make the same damage (with the same Ps) .. so it's only to have more customization possibilities?

At my point of view there is already lot of choices and noone look like another player except Kuyak sect  .

[Tydeus]

I wasn't saying buff them to make them as good as those expensive weapons, but we should buff them to make them usable(besides, chadz at one point was on board with this idea).

I'd give a detailed list, but it's so long that I might as well be proposing the exact changes myself, and I'm not an item balancer.

[Leshma]

Peasant gear does need a buff.

[BlueKnight]

When it comes to heavy lance, it has same damage as pitchfork. Does it count as peasant weapon?

[Phew]

Peasant weapons shouldn't be flat inferior to a top-tier weapon in every respect; they should have some advantage. For instance, the Falchion is 6 speed slower, 1 cut less, and 8 cm shorter than the Liuyedao, a pretty cheap weapon. I don't think the Falchion would be considered some OP lightsaber if it was 103 speed, as it would still be less damaging and shorter than the Liuyedao, but at least it would have a small speed advantage.

Peasants have low wpf anyway, help them out by increasing the speed of their weapons.

[Tydeus]

Peasant weapons shouldn't be flat inferior to a top-tier weapon in every respect; they should have some advantage. For instance, the Falchion is 6 speed slower, 1 cut less, and 8 cm shorter than the Liuyedao, a pretty cheap weapon. I don't think the Falchion would be considered some OP lightsaber if it was 103 speed, as it would still be less damaging and shorter than the Liuyedao, but at least it would have a small speed advantage.

Peasants have low wpf anyway, help them out by increasing the speed of their weapons.

This is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. It doesn't have to be the speed but it shouldn't be that much of a difference when a liuyedao is only a 2K gold weapon to begin with. Staff is 16b/16b, Iron Staff is 26/25 and it's not as if the iron staff is a really strong weapon. The phrase "god awful" comes to mind here.

[Phew]

The cheapest HALF of the 1h weapons (Rondel excluded) are outclassed in every way by at least one higher-tier weapon. At least 2h and pole have some cheap weapons that clearly fill a niche for even high level players, but they have a lot of weak peasant crap too.

Even worse are the weapons that are expensive but still inferior: Arabian Arming Sword, Arabian Guard Sword, Shashka, Long Arming Sword, etc. Again, 2h and pole options are mostly balanced above the peasant stuff.

Basically, 1h may have a lot of options, but over half of them are crap.

[Pentecost]

I'd give a detailed list, but it's so long that I might as well be proposing the exact changes myself, and I'm not an item balancer.

You have a good recent track record with this kind of thing, though. The changes you suggested regarding 2h swords were accepted wholesale and the changes you suggested for the new polearms were accepted with some modifications. If you have the time to actually compose a list of weapons that you think should get a buff (you don't actually need to specify how much they should be buffed or why), you should consider posting it.

Also, I agree with what Phew is saying as well. Balancing items by cost works well for really expensive stuff like plate armor and armored horses but hits some snags when it comes to cheaper items. There's a 2000 gold difference between a Shortened Military Scythe (an actual decent budget weapon) and a Bastard Sword, but how many people are going to choose the former over the latter? If anything, you would make more money with the Bastard Sword in the long run because of valor and doing a better job of helping your team to win.

The fact that you will always make money with cheaper medium armor and a medium weapon and that there's little point in using a cheap weapon with expensive armor compared to using an expensive weapon with cheap armor means that nearly every weapon under 3k-4k cost in any category, be it 1h, 2h, or polearm, is not worth using unless you have very low stats and cannot use anything better.

[Tydeus]

Alright, here are some numbers and comparisons. The long espada with only 27c and 28p is a good example of a weapon largely becoming ineffective due to simply having too low of damage even if they have reasonable length or speed. The Side Sword and Espada are also good examples of this. When 1h thrust was good and it was possible to have a 1h build centered around thrusting, like the GS/GGS, they were mostly fine.

But then we have weapons like the Broad Short Sword with only 85 length, 26 pierce and 28 cut. I'm sorry, that's a piece of shit weapon that might as well be removed from the game. The 1h thrust is too poor of a thing to be able to carry that sword to usefulness. 6K gold and it's a failure in 2/3 stat areas.

Meanwhile, we have the Elite Scimitar with 100 length, 99 speed and 31c(fairly low, but the other stats are pretty good so it works in the end). The NCS, 102 length, 97 speed, 32cut, the ACS, 105 length, 35c and 95 speed(low speed, but the length and damage are massive in comparison to all other options.) The Picks, with 97/98 speed and 30/32 pierce damage for their short range. Do you guys see the theme here?

All the high tier 1h weapons have great stats in 2/3. While it's possible to have a weapon with only one really great stat and still be good, we have to realize that when you completely forsake the other two for one, you end up doing one of two things. You either end up with a poor trade off weapon or a weapon with stats so low in other areas, that the weapon became utterly useless(Wakizashi vs Any random axe, NSWS vs NCS).

We have a problem with 1hers(specifically the weapons with "Short" in their name) where we think speed matters more than length, but that just isn't ever the case. Without a good amount of damage, your speed simply becomes worthless. Why? Because of game mechanics that are counterproductive to high speed, low damage weapons. Hold mechanics, armor, glances, risk vs reward with chambers, the correlation between weapon length and kick success rate. Length provides while extreme speed, when offset by too low of damage/length amounts, just adds risk.

Yet the opposite simply isn't true. You can actually have extreme length with comparatively low damage and speed amounts(glaive) and do just fine. You can have extreme damage with low length and low speed and still have a reasonably good weapon(GLA/LWA).

Short Arming Sword
weapon length: 81
weight: 1
difficulty: 7
speed rating: 103
weapon length: 81
thrust damage: 26 pierce
swing damage: 26 cut

How exactly do you argue in favor of using this thing, ever. Somehow the103 speed is supposed to make up for getting outranged by just about everyone and having inconsequential amounts of damage?

Here's a simple comparison that comes to mind regarding popular high tier weapons and an unpopular seemingly lower tier cut damage weapon. (I know the steel pick is used more than the military, but there is a very good reason the steel pick is used over the military, and not because the military is bad, but because there is really no benefit to not choosing the steel, and so for the sake of a simple comparison I chose the the military).

Italian Falchion
weapon length: 70
weight: 1
difficulty: 11
speed rating: 101
weapon length: 70
thrust damage: 21 pierce
swing damage: 34 cut

Military Pick
weapon length: 70
weight: 2
difficulty: 13
speed rating: 98
weapon length: 70
thrust damage: 0 pierce
swing damage: 30 pierce

So 3 speed on what are already high speed weapons (you get larger returns on wpf from low speed weapons) is supposed to make up the damage difference? Sorry, pierce isn't such a trivial thing as that.

There are so many problems you could literally go on for hours with this.

/rant

Sorry for not composing this better, it started out as a facepalm reply to a post in a different thread and right now, I just cba to clean it up.

Edit: I should add, I'm not saying you can't do good with these weapons, obviously a good player can do good with just about anything. It's that when you analyze the weapons from as many different directions and perspectives as possible, you really start to see the trends that create imbalances.

Edit 2: I also do not believe these current high tier weapons are deserving of any sort of nerfs. What I do believe, is that much like what happened to 2h rebalance recently, we need to buff the weaker weapons instead.

[Aderyn]

I'd give a detailed list, but it's so long that I might as well be proposing the exact changes myself, and I'm not an item balancer.

you'd probably do a better job than the current item balancer :/

[Phew]

I think it's more than just the stats, the soak/mitigation formulas are messed up. The 1h swords don't need to do more damage to light armor, as they already 2-3 shot archers/ninjas. But taking 10-15 swings to drop your typical strength 2h is totally absurd, since they can 1-2 shot you.

High cut (45+) is  too effective vs. high armor, but medium cut (30-35) is too poor vs high armor. It needs to be linearized a bit more. Pierce/blunt are probably OK against high armor now, but why not have them do crap damage to light armor? So there will be more of a downside to using them.

[Tydeus]

I think it's more than just the stats, the soak/mitigation formulas are messed up. The 1h swords don't need to do more damage to light armor, as they already 2-3 shot archers/ninjas. But taking 10-15 swings to drop your typical strength 2h is totally absurd, since they can 1-2 shot you.

High cut (45+) is  too effective vs. high armor, but medium cut (30-35) is too poor vs high armor. It needs to be linearized a bit more. Pierce/blunt are probably OK against high armor now, but why not have them do crap damage to light armor? So there will be more of a downside to using them.

True, personally I am an advocate of lowering the maximum amount of armor that people can get, to about 60 when loomed. Trying to balance 30 armor with 70 is unrealistic. It's a moot point though, as eventually (hopefully soon) the cut/pierce/blunt system will be changed for something much more in depth that will actually make all weapons more specialized.