Merge Long and Short Blades


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Mines Malingerer

Posts: 37

Joined: Monday, 4th July 2016, 04:56

Post Sunday, 23rd April 2017, 04:48

Merge Long and Short Blades

Posting in CYC 'cause I'm not sure I'm a good enough player to post in GDD ;)

So, proposal is as follows: people seem to have a fairly mixed view on both Short and Long Blades at the moment. Stabbing is really good when you can with a Sblade, and riposte is pretty powerful it seems as well, albeit a bit passive. I had an interesting thought, and that would be merging both weapon classes, in order to create a more unified and unique weapon class. This new class, let's just call it Blades, would retain both (sblade) stabbing and riposte; although at varying levels depending on the size of the blade in question. It would work something like this:

Dagger: 100% stab damage. 0% riposte damage (so essentially, dagger would remain the same).
Short Sword: 85% stab damage. 15% riposte damage (so it would still get strong stabs, and trigger riposte as well, but only a very weak one).
Rapier (or was it cutlass?): 70% stab damage, 30% riposte damage.

This would continue all the way up in to what are now long blades, with the Triple Sword gaining something along the lines of 0% stab damage and 100% riposte damage.

Of course, all those numbers are probably crap, but just there to give a general idea as to how this would work, they should obviously be tweaked to perfection :P
These numbers could simply show up in weapon description as well, so you don't need to go hunting around the wiki or whatnot whenever you find a new sword.

Although this idea isn't necessarily needed, I think it would be neat; it would make blades more streamlined (it's actually a little odd to me that long and sblades are so different), and remove the idea that "shortblades are terrible", an idea I'm against anyway, seeing as my first win was with a quickblade :P

Anyway, thoughts? I think it's a good idea, but Tavern has a delightful way of proving to people otherwise ;)
My lack of individuality frightens me.

bel

Cocytus Succeeder

Posts: 2184

Joined: Tuesday, 3rd February 2015, 22:05

Post Sunday, 23rd April 2017, 05:33

Re: Merge Long and Short Blades

The proposal would make things too complicated. New players have enough trouble figuring out weapons as it is. It's not a good idea complicate them further by having "partial stab and partial riposte". It's better to have two binary weapon classes. One is good at one thing, and the other is good at another.

Short blades already crosstrain with long blades. Short blades typically require only a little bit of XP to use effectively, and there is plenty of XP in the game.

I agree that there are too many weapon types in Crawl, but this proposal doesn't move in the right direction.

For this message the author bel has received thanks: 4
duvessa, LoopyLeo, mattlistener, nago

Crypt Cleanser

Posts: 689

Joined: Saturday, 12th December 2015, 23:54

Post Sunday, 23rd April 2017, 06:09

Re: Merge Long and Short Blades

I think it would be good to merge them, but I would just remove riposte and let them all have the improved stab damage (daggers can keep their extra special bonus too, I guess). Riposte doesn't function well as a weapon mechanic; it's doesn't really alter your tactics or strategy, it makes it harder to tell how much damage longblades actually do, and it tricks a lot of new or unspoiled players into making bad decisions because they think the damage scaling with ev is a much bigger deal than it is.

Having two different mechanics with different damage percentage values on each weapon in the school is really complicated and I'm not sure what it would accomplish relative to the status quo; you're still going to want a small blade for stabbing and you're still going to want a big one for riposte or doing non-stab melee, there's just a lot more numbers to look at.

For this message the author Hellmonk has received thanks: 3
LoopyLeo, nago, Rast

Mines Malingerer

Posts: 37

Joined: Monday, 4th July 2016, 04:56

Post Sunday, 23rd April 2017, 06:54

Re: Merge Long and Short Blades

Those are both very good points, although I don't think this proposal would be *too* complicated for new players, if implemented well.
Merging both classes with the loss of riposte sounds quite feasible though. It would seem a little bit odd, flavor wise, having a triple sword do full stab damage though perhaps.

Also worth noting, Hellmonk: I am flattered by your reply. Your creation of Hellcrawl has been fab :D
My lack of individuality frightens me.

Snake Sneak

Posts: 107

Joined: Saturday, 25th February 2012, 10:49

Post Sunday, 23rd April 2017, 16:11

Re: Merge Long and Short Blades

Even the largest real-world swords are relatively light and designed to execute quick moves: http://www.thearma.org/essays/2HGS.html. (Except maybe ceremonical weapons that are completely useless in a fight.) This means that stabbing on two-handed swords may be reasonable. Of course, stabbing on triple swords may be odd, but the triple sword is a joke weapon and everything is odd about it.

Abyss Ambulator

Posts: 1193

Joined: Friday, 16th January 2015, 20:20

Post Sunday, 23rd April 2017, 22:20

Re: Merge Long and Short Blades

I do change my tactics a little for Long Blades: if fighting a mob, I try to maneuver next to polearms, ranged, or magic users for the chance to riposte them. Pretty minor, but it keeps Long Blades interesting for me.

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