Adjusting Stats on Several Weapon Models

[Boden]

I wanted to open up a thread about this topic and give a few examples.

There is a decent amount of weapon variety in the game at the moment, but the population still gravitates toward the "meta" weapons in each class. What I propose is a tweak to the stats on several of the weapon models to give them an alternate role and keep them viable as well as add a little variety to combat.


Lets look at Swords here, the Heavy Great Blade. This is pretty much the meta sword in the game right now. Almost 28 Slash with steel and still has 12 Blunt and 26 Pierce. Its relatively easy on stamina and hits like a truck. There is very little reason to use any other sword at the moment.

Next we have the Cross-guard Blade, It's got worse slash/pierce/blunt than the heavy great blade (and Great Blade) but its a bit lighter. The model looks like an Estoc, a piercing sword. If it actually had really high pierce (35 or so) it would be a pretty viable fast stabbing sword, giving another play style to sword fighters. It currently has worse piercing than almost all of the available models.


Next we have the good old Weeb Katana. It's fast, but only has about 23-24 slash and almost no blunt damage. Statistically its the worst sword, its fast, but short. This thing would benefit from having extremely high slash, in the 35 range with steel. The lack of blunt damage would still keep it below the heavy great blade in damage but it would chew up lightly armored targets like it should.



Finally, ye old Risar Sword. They are pretty decent, better stats than the rest but also on the heavy side which makes them tough on stamina. This sword has the highest piercing damage of all the great blades. The sword with the squared off point, has the highest piercing damage of all swords. Please read that last sentence again.


Normal great-blades are pretty decent, a little longer and faster than the heavy great blade but with a little less damage. The rest of these models though are rarely used just because there is no reason to use them over the Heavy Great Blade.

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Next Lets talk about Axes a little. There is almost no reason to use any other axe beside the Kallardian Double Axe. It's heavy and a little slow, but it hits like a truck. If you are using any other axe model, you are getting worse overall performance than the old Kallardian Double.

The thing about axes, is they are all heavy. A lightweight Kallardian Battle Axe still weighs close to 4KG. They don't have a viable, fast, lightweight, lower damage option like the Warhammer for the two handed Hammers. If you are going to use an Axe you might as well go with the biggest and baddest because there is really no other option.




The Battle Axe for example, it is worst axe in every way statistically. Almost no one uses them. Why not keep this models damage stats the same but cut the weight down to 2-2.5KG to give axe users a stam efficient higher speed option. And while we are at it, give it 25 pierce, the model makes it look like you could stab with it but the stats make that a worthless attack.



Speaking of pierce lets talk Warhammer. It literally has a spike on the end. Made with steel they have less than 12 pierce. Give the Warhammer 25-30 piercing damage and all the sudden there is one hammer with 4 viable attacks instead of 3.



I think making a few minor changes like these to the stats of these weapons would result in players using a greater variety than what we currently see out there. I dont want to nerf Heavy Great Blades, Kallardian Double, and Risar Spears but I would like to see more viable options out there with added advantages and disadvantages. This is by no means a complete list. Spears could use a little slashing love/hate on a few of the models as well.

Let me know what you think.

 

[Anabolic Man]

i think the katana not need more slashing but piercing damage

 

[MaDeuce]

i think the katana not need more slashing but piercing damage

I agree as the katana is a cultural adaptive saber in style and grace

 

[Evelyn]

I don't think 2H weapons are the ones that need buffs, lol.

 

[Lord Hair Remover]

One handed weapons are non-existent.

 

[Tzone]

There is like only one version of each weapon that is "viable".

They could make more variation in the use of weapons among the players min maxing if they had varring counter reduction stats then people my branch out more.

Some of the shorter or weaker weapon could have a couple % more counter reduction then the stronger weapons like great blade.

Also with the guards that affect crit and damage instead they could affect the counter reduction and crit. By minimal values.

Right now depending on STR you pretty much choose Heavy Great Blade with Risar hilt or horned hilt if you dont have Risar.
By having varring counter reduction it might pull the min max away from this narrow use of weapons.

 

[Kameyo]

Great post by someone who has put his time into this beta. SV you should listen to him.

 

[Detrimentum]

Waiting for you to cover the rest of the weapons. this is great. keep up the good work

 

[Boden]

There is like only one version of each weapon that is "viable".

They could make more variation in the use of weapons among the players min maxing if they had varring counter reduction stats then people my branch out more.

Some of the shorter or weaker weapon could have a couple % more counter reduction then the stronger weapons like great blade.

Also with the guards that affect crit and damage instead they could affect the counter reduction and crit. By minimal values.

Right now depending on STR you pretty much choose Heavy Great Blade with Risar hilt or horned hilt if you dont have Risar.
By having varring counter reduction it might pull the min max away from this narrow use of weapons.

I'm not a huge fan of the counter reduction mechanic personally. I would rather see see something tied to weapon weight (instead of just 1 Hander Vs 2 hander like we have now). Lighter weight, faster reset on a miss for example or less stam used while parrying.

 

[Backyard Employee]

The big problem with weapon balance in MO (I say MO, as it was prevalent in MO1 and more so in MO2) is that as stated here for the most part every weapon category ends up having a meta-weapon which is superior to anything else in its class.

If I was to have my way:

• Swords should be balanced across the board for stats.. Slashing, piercing, and then blunt in that order. But not excel in any tremendously.
• Katanas should offer higher slasher and piercing, but almost no blunt.
• Axes should have high slashing, and medium to high blunt damage; with no piercing damage.
• Hammers should have solely blunt damage, with some heads (Such as the starmace or warhammer) having medium piercing.
• Daggers last time I used them seemed fine, but they should be much quicker in my opinion.
• One handed weapons need to follow the way daggers were implemented, where most of the handle hit-box is ignored. (As one handed weapons suffer much more from handle hits then two handed weapons.)
• Blunt weapons, such as hammers, need to do more damage through parries / blocks to incentivize a reason to use them.
• One handed weapons need to be faster, they are all slow for the most part.
• Shields need more intuitive purposes rather then a larger area to absorb arrows. Shield bashing, in my opinion, should break someone's ability to guard temporarily (With an internal cooldown on having your guard broken so it isn't spammed against players.)
• Diversity within the weapon categories needs to become a thing. Don't make subtle differences. These subtle differences suck and force players to take the best one of them all.

However a big problem with weapons can also stem from the combat itself. The game is slow, clunky (handle hits are extremely common), and unwieldy for most weapons.

 

[Anabolic Man]

One handed weapons are non-existent.

They will cost much less stamina in future. Henrick confirmed it in the Stream, so there will be a benefit using them. The game think that every 1 handed player will use a shield, so they made the 1 h weapons consume lot of stamina while running with a charged weapon. This will be reduced and the game will hopefully notice if you use a 1 hander with a shield or without, so you get different stamina multiplier if you use it with a shield or without.

 

[Lord Hair Remover]

They will cost much less stamina in future. Henrick confirmed it in the Stream, so there will be a benefit using them. The game think that every 1 handed player will use a shield, so they made the 1 h weapons consume lot of stamina while running with a charged weapon. This will be reduced and the game will hopefully notice if you use a 1 hander with a shield or without, so you get different stamina multiplier if you use it with a shield or without.

The stamina isn't important. One handed weapons are just super slow and they always had extremely bad hit boxes because of their handles. People won't use them just because they use less stamina.

 

[Xronim]

Good thread, it makes me confused on why parts are built mostly off of weight to damage and not having particular parts being better for certain damage types like a more stab oriented sword or a more blunt weighted axe.

Having more parts with varying stats would give a reason to use to use the rapier like 1h blade over only going for heavy blades/risar as an example.

One handed weapons also could use hitbox adjustments since they seem like only the tip of the model counts for a clean hit.

 

[Boden]

Bumper.

 

[WolfAchilles]

While you're at it.... poleswords as a group have mediocre damage. The pierce is a joke compared to poleaxes. The blunt is still pretty low, and the stamina drain is absolutely abysmal

 

[Tzone]

Hopefully with the grant they will high a balance lead.

 

[Backyard Employee]

@Herius Not your fault on this one either right?

 

[Xronim]

Its starting to really show this is a problem when you rarely see anything other than heavy greatblades, double kall axes and risar spears.

 

[Tzone]

Its starting to really show this is a problem when you rarely see anything other than heavy greatblades, double kall axes and risar spears.

But Henriks spread sheet says other wise...

Yeah there is def a meta and not really any reason to use something outside the meta. The crafting system is shallow.

I suggested having attributes on weapon parts that modify the counter parry.

 

[Boden]

Bumping this because its still relevant.