I was running some quick tests on few weapon types (2h swords, axes and spears) and I was noticing some weird patterns
first, str requirement affects swing speed, and not weight as few people were suggesting in various chats. while it seems the 2 would be connected, str requirement actually takes in consideration both weight AND durability (and some sort of handle multiplier, more on it below). the higher both are, the more strenght requirement the weapon will have. In fact, I could make weapons with 0.01kg weight difference and almost 10 points of str requirement difference, resulting in much slower swing speed.
in this scenario, low str-decent dura weapons are the must-have for foot pvp: because of how OP parry is, having a low-str fast-swing weapon gives you significant competitive advantage (as well as much better stamina management), as it can be slightly easier to make your opponent miss the parry timing. so this setting alone makes more than 3/4 of the weapon combinations pretty much useless (see below)
handles: handle types have a fixed "multiplier" for durability and str requirements: pretty simply, using the same materials, certain handles increase weapon durability at the expense of lower str requirements, ina a semi-linear way. once you find the best handle which gives the lowest sr req and decent durability all the other 3-4 options become 100% useless (a similar pattern in MO1 crafting, where in the end only few weapon options were really viable).
in particular, heavier weapons are highly penalized in this slower combat, because they offer no significant advantage compared to faster weapons, but large disavantages (like stamina drain). Even in the damage department, you cannot even push the weight/damage up to ridicolous levels like it was done for mounted fighters in MO1 (ie making a weapon so heavy that would draw lots of stamina, but do lots of damage as well). this is because now core/grip have a very limited impact on damage, and mostly affect durability and weight/str requirement (and indirectly swing speed).
how can this system be tweaked to fully exploit the complexity of MO weapon crafting and make more options viable? I'm not 100% sure, as it is quite complicated, but as basic idea in my mind i have:
- separate durability from strenght requirement calculations. make all weapons of a single type (axes, spears etc) have near-identical values for str requirements (and thus very similar swing speed), while the materials used to craft have the largest impact on durability (not the handle type, see below) and damage type. at the sime time though, "light" crafting materials like spongewood or flakestone should be really penalized in term of durability, to incentivate the use of better materials
- make all handles identical in term of values, just different in term of aesthetics. while this seems counterproductive, it would actually make all handle types equally viable, and equally used in weapons. Alternatively a much more complicated solution would be for each handle to have material-specific durability multipliers, meaning that certain handles would get bigger bonuses when crafted out of certain materials. for instance, a 1h twisted handle would gain 1.2x dura if made of 100% metal, whereas a spear crude handle would gain 1.2x dura if made ouf of wood etc etc. This however would be a nightmare to code and to balance, hence the simpler solution above.
first, str requirement affects swing speed, and not weight as few people were suggesting in various chats. while it seems the 2 would be connected, str requirement actually takes in consideration both weight AND durability (and some sort of handle multiplier, more on it below). the higher both are, the more strenght requirement the weapon will have. In fact, I could make weapons with 0.01kg weight difference and almost 10 points of str requirement difference, resulting in much slower swing speed.
in this scenario, low str-decent dura weapons are the must-have for foot pvp: because of how OP parry is, having a low-str fast-swing weapon gives you significant competitive advantage (as well as much better stamina management), as it can be slightly easier to make your opponent miss the parry timing. so this setting alone makes more than 3/4 of the weapon combinations pretty much useless (see below)
handles: handle types have a fixed "multiplier" for durability and str requirements: pretty simply, using the same materials, certain handles increase weapon durability at the expense of lower str requirements, ina a semi-linear way. once you find the best handle which gives the lowest sr req and decent durability all the other 3-4 options become 100% useless (a similar pattern in MO1 crafting, where in the end only few weapon options were really viable).
in particular, heavier weapons are highly penalized in this slower combat, because they offer no significant advantage compared to faster weapons, but large disavantages (like stamina drain). Even in the damage department, you cannot even push the weight/damage up to ridicolous levels like it was done for mounted fighters in MO1 (ie making a weapon so heavy that would draw lots of stamina, but do lots of damage as well). this is because now core/grip have a very limited impact on damage, and mostly affect durability and weight/str requirement (and indirectly swing speed).
how can this system be tweaked to fully exploit the complexity of MO weapon crafting and make more options viable? I'm not 100% sure, as it is quite complicated, but as basic idea in my mind i have:
- separate durability from strenght requirement calculations. make all weapons of a single type (axes, spears etc) have near-identical values for str requirements (and thus very similar swing speed), while the materials used to craft have the largest impact on durability (not the handle type, see below) and damage type. at the sime time though, "light" crafting materials like spongewood or flakestone should be really penalized in term of durability, to incentivate the use of better materials
- make all handles identical in term of values, just different in term of aesthetics. while this seems counterproductive, it would actually make all handle types equally viable, and equally used in weapons. Alternatively a much more complicated solution would be for each handle to have material-specific durability multipliers, meaning that certain handles would get bigger bonuses when crafted out of certain materials. for instance, a 1h twisted handle would gain 1.2x dura if made of 100% metal, whereas a spear crude handle would gain 1.2x dura if made ouf of wood etc etc. This however would be a nightmare to code and to balance, hence the simpler solution above.
