wielding a short blade and a blowgun together?

[headcrab0803]

I always thought that blowguns are less useful because you have to switch it with your main weapon while you get chased by your enemies. This makes blowguns only useful for spriggans(who can actually kite enemies) in the midgame unless you have decent throwing skill and thats why I'm wondering what would it be like if blowguns were wieldable with a shortblade. what do you guys think about this?

[njvack]

I think this qualifies as dual-wielding, which is on the "won't do" list.

Blowguns with poison are useful for everyone. Use 'em earlier.

[mumra]

It's very quick switching between weapons. It's easier if you assign your sword and your blowgun to the a and b keys, then you can switch between them with '. To reassign inventory letters use the = menu.

[Sandman25]

Blowgun is useful to Assassin background and TrHu/OgHu also.

[Davion Fuxa]

It's very quick switching between weapons. It's easier if you assign your sword and your blowgun to the a and b keys, then you can switch between them with '. To reassign inventory letters use the = menu.

This should actually be included in the Tutorial. I think at one point it was but it no longer is.

[evktalo]

It's very quick switching between weapons. It's easier if you assign your sword and your blowgun to the a and b keys, then you can switch between them with '. To reassign inventory letters use the = menu.

This should actually be included in the Tutorial. I think at one point it was but it no longer is.

I quite possibly took it out during last year's tutorial reworking, quite possibly because it was difficult to grasp for our usability testers, and I quite possibly had in mind that it should be in hint mode. You do do a lot of switching if you have a launcher though, so quite possibly that was not a good move on my part.

Quite possibly a general ability to "dual-wield" a launcher alongside a melee weapon might be alright. I'm not super convinced that having to switch your wielded weapon is crucial for ranged gameplay or its balance.

--Eino

[BlackSheep]

There's an auto_switch option you can set that will swap from 'a' to 'b' (or vice versa) if you try to 'f'ire while wielding a melee weapon in the opposite slot. It doesn't seem to work the other way, though.

[adozu]

blowguns are very useful even to non-kiting characters early on and if you get some curare needles there's pretty much no character i wouldn't carry one with unless they are with ashenzari or something.

[prozacelf]

There's an auto_switch option you can set that will swap from 'a' to 'b' (or vice versa) if you try to 'f'ire while wielding a melee weapon in the opposite slot. It doesn't seem to work the other way, though.

I don't know the specifics, but hitting ' gives me an empty hand on linux most of the time.

I assume it has to do with my rcfile, but why is it different from windows?

[BlackSheep]

Do you have your two weapons in slots a and b? I use it all the time on linux without problems.

[prozacelf]

Do you have your two weapons in slots a and b? I use it all the time on linux without problems.

NO, and this is the sort of thing that makes me angry.

Simple, but no where that seems obvious.

I will use it but I feel bad about complaining.

[varsovie]

The obvious would be; switch to the previous weapon/wielded object.

[prozacelf]

I now assign them to a and b, but I feel dumb for having to had to ask how to make it work that way. Putting it (back?) in the tutorial or in hints mode would probably be a good idea.

Switch to previous sounds like a good idea, but it would probably be annoying in many circumstances (Nemelex worshippers, people who use Sublimation of blood, etc.)

E: Probably not Nemelex worshippers, but other builds that use decks maybe.

[cerebovssquire]

If anyone else is having problems with the ' command, don't forget that the macro wb=iba will work in exactly the same way, except that your wielded weapon will always be on the a slot. You can assign this to any key, and I use it on , because that's more conviently placed than ' in my experience.

[prozacelf]

You are right, but I'm betting that anyone who has a problem with it can't figure out either solution.

I needed about a month or so to work out any of the macros.

[Davion Fuxa]

Okay, I accidentally threw this topic completely off track, time to get it back on track.

Quite possibly a general ability to "dual-wield" a launcher alongside a melee weapon might be alright. I'm not super convinced that having to switch your wielded weapon is crucial for ranged gameplay or its balance.

Essentially would this be similar to the idea in some other games of giving Ranged Weaponry its own inventory slot; whereas in Crawl terms, I might be simultaneously wielding a Sabre, a Buckler, and a Crossbow or a Double Sword and a Longbow? Or might the idea here be that the Launcher takes up the Left Hand Slot, so as long as you only have a One Handed Weapon you can wield it just fine; which has the added benefit that it could work well with keeping Slings extremely versatile since you could probably how your Executioner's Axe in one hand while swinging the Sling in your Left Hand overhead.

[BlackSheep]

The topic ended on post 2. Dual wielding isn't going into the game. If you want ranged attacks while wielding a melee weapon, throw stuff or learn magic.

[roctavian]

How about a short sword with a tube running through the middle of it, so you can put needles in there and

[Davion Fuxa]

The topic ended on post 2. Dual wielding isn't going into the game. If you want ranged attacks while wielding a melee weapon, throw stuff or learn magic.

The topic restarted on post 6, but the question would be how the idea would come about in Crawl Terms.

Having a Ranged Weapon Slot is an idea that many other games have incorporated. Essentially in those games your character only wields one weapon at a time (some have you sometimes wearing a Shield during both actions) but the player doesn't have to anything to swap the weapons or equip one of them first; ie, I want to fire a designated Ranged Weapon - I just hit the Firing key, I want to switch back to Melee - I just hit the Meleeing key.

It's the sort of idea that streamlines the process of changing from Ranged to Melee in that the only time you would be equipping your weapons would be when you want to change the type of weapons you are Meleeing with or Firing with (ie, you have a Crossbow of Evasion and Crossbow of Frost; you are currently wielding the Crossbow of Evasion as your designated weapon but you want to use your Crossbow of Frost and so you have to equip it).

[BlackSheep]

Instead of inventing extra inventory slots, think of a way to fix the option that's already in the game.

[Galefury]

Having to swap to use a ranged weapon doesn't serve much of a point. I think a ranged weapon slot would be good.

[BlackSheep]

I'm less concerned about swapping to use a ranged weapon than I am with swapping to use a melee weapon. Launcher-focused builds are already quite strong.

[Davion Fuxa]

I'm less concerned about swapping to use a ranged weapon than I am with swapping to use a melee weapon. Launcher-focused builds are already quite strong.

Balancing can occur later - let's make them fun to use first.

[mumra]

It seems to be the problem is that people don't know about the 'a' and 'b' slots.

An easy way to solve this issue would be to add two commands to the weapon details screen in your inventory - 'a' to set as primary weapon, 'b' to set as secondary weapon. This would just be a shortcut to swap them to the respective letter slots but would make the interface to do so much more transparent. The screen could include a hint "press ' in-game to swap between primary and secondary weapons".

[Galefury]

It's still annoying when you know about a, b and '.

[njvack]

I'd be happy with a ranged weapon slot if:

* launchers (artefact or no) did not convey passive benefits (resists, protection, etc)
* a cursed main weapon prevented launcher use

[prozacelf]

It seems to be the problem is that people don't know about the 'a' and 'b' slots.

An easy way to solve this issue would be to add two commands to the weapon details screen in your inventory - 'a' to set as primary weapon, 'b' to set as secondary weapon. This would just be a shortcut to swap them to the respective letter slots but would make the interface to do so much more transparent. The screen could include a hint "press ' in-game to swap between primary and secondary weapons".

An in-game hint would have helped me a lot. Even after I figured out that I could hit ' to swap, I didn't realize why it was swapping to that weapon. To njvack's point, that would probably be a lot more complicated, but I felt like a moron for having to ask about the first point.

[Davion Fuxa]

I'd be happy with a ranged weapon slot if:

* launchers (artefact or no) did not convey passive benefits (resists, protection, etc)
* a cursed main weapon prevented launcher use

I see no problem with the idea of sticky curses preventing the use of the launcher - or vice versa in the case that it is the launcher that happens to be cursed and preventing the use of being able to melee things. With the new slot that would be intuitive enough to grasp quickly enough for players.

The point about passive resistances is a good point, and Ranged Weapons Artefacts could be reworked to be more offensive in nature.

[varsovie]

An easy way to solve this issue would be to add two commands to the weapon details screen in your inventory - 'a' to set as primary weapon, 'b' to set as secondary weapon. This would just be a shortcut to swap them to the respective letter slots but would make the interface to do so much more transparent. The screen could include a hint "press ' in-game to swap between primary and secondary weapons".

Also free those letters, only put first melee weapon in a and first ranged in b.
Right now if you start as a monk, you have a robe in a and bread in b. No kidding I won't get the ' trick even by mistake.
Other class also have non-weapon in a and b.

[njvack]

If launchers got their own slot, I think they'd also need to be non-cursable. Otherwise you'd need to handle all kinds of odd "what if both weapons get cursed? does order matter?" issues. Throwables aren't cursable; I don't think this would be any weirder.

Basically, since dual-wield is (rightly) out, for this change to be sane, launchers would need to be less similar to melee weapons. I think it could be done well but it'd be a barrel of work.