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Post by chirality on Oct 5, 2016 3:33:44 GMT
In the weapons update, it's clear that a critical component of the rebalance was for all weapons of the same size to have the same base damage, except for exotic weapons, which received a boosted base damage, obviously in order to improve them so that the rebalance didn't produce a homogenization in which exotic weapons lost a lot of appeal when their favorable features no longer set them apart from martial weapons. Overall, this was a fine solution, and pretty much all weapons that lost previously-kewl traits remain at least competitive in the current meta.
However, huge weapons got shafted. I admit that there aren't many viable builds which use them, and as such it's surely low/zero priority, but nonetheless, I feel this should be addressed. When it comes to lance and merc sword, there's a glaring lack of consistency in the established pattern (exotic weapons get bigger base damage than martial counterparts of their size category) as well as a lack of balance sense/common sense (why should a medium sized weapon deal more damage than one 2 sizes larger, when the latter requires exotic feat expenditure as well).
At first the logical progression seems to be followed: tiny 1d4, small 1d6, medium weapons deal 1d8, large 1d10, so naturally huge shall deal 1d12. This treatment failed to address the fact that the only 2 huge weapons in existence are exotic, and therefore should properly deal more than the "standard base" for Huge weapons. After comparison to a weapon like scythe (also exotic, and 1 size smaller, yet dealing far higher base damage) or katana/bsword (even 2 sizes smaller yet also dealing far more impressive base), it's quite sad. Why should these weapons, which already were amongst the least popular and appealing, have received a flat nerf, whereas other weapons were rebalanced and granted gains to make up for losses?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 5, 2016 3:56:38 GMT
I believe they were slated to receive a buff in the ~next patch, with their critical stats being raised to either 19-20/x4 or 20/x5 (which would put them one 'notch' above other weapons, in terms of critical hits). Though since there are only options for Slashing and Piercing at the moment, IMO they won't be fully viable until a Bludgeoning option is introduced as well.
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Post by chirality on Oct 5, 2016 6:49:57 GMT
I don't think that further improving the crits makes as much sense as simply boosting the base damage so it lines up more sensibly with the established pattern; after all this is essentially more of a niggling dissatisfaction over base damage, not "weapon needs rebalance cuz it's not as good as others", which was the primary motivation in most weapon rebalance discussion (there's no question of whether or not these see use--there's only 2 options, so if you want to play a 2h large toon, you use one). Alternatively, it'd be fine to just remove the exotic and make them martial; that would solve the issue of feeling like the exotic proficiency is basically wasted or a sham since: there's no other competition so there's no cost analysis or decision to be made on the value of the feat; you must take it/you already have a large toon/and there's no impressive weapon stats to explain it. Tweaking to 19-20/x4 and 20/x5 would definitely be interesting (and preferable to me, but then I'd do a similar treatment with other weapons as well but, what was done was done and I think it was a fine choice so let's keep rolling with it) but the established paradigm points more to an emphasis on upped base damage--not further-improved crits--when it comes to exotics. For example, if scythe went to 20/x5 rather than receiving boosted base damage, I think that would have been a much more satisfying and meta-impacting rebalance (considering that x4 was formerly uniquely held by scythe). However, the option was chosen to instead leave most crits as is for exotics, improve martial crits, and improve exotic base, so for the sake of aesthetics and feeling like exotic status being worth something (rather than yet another default cost for large 2hers), something like 2d10 is more appropriate to my mind. (Noting that 2d8 is a suitable choice for scythe at size large, if not for the fact that for some reason katana and bsword were given that rather unexpected large base anyway, at size medium--it looks like it was done to differentiate from dwarven waraxe at 2d6, but in my opinion a more fitting treatment would have been to give all 3 2d6 base; they're already variated enough to be quite different with 18-20/x2, 19-20/x3, and 20/x4 crit stats, and 1step progression from 1d10 would be 2d6 anyway so bsword/kat got 2step vs dwarf axe's 1, which leaves dwarf axe in essentially the same position it was before the rebalance: unimpressive vs comparable weapons and likely to never be used except by DwD; furthermore bsword and kat were already traditionally-popular so it seemed strange to give a buff when their crit stats already made them solid for years, and as classics they're probably likely to be chosen by the average player more consistently than any other weapon) Back ontopic @ huge weapons: if crits were improved, it would be cool enough I guess, but I think it's not really necessary; large 2h just sux and the races designed for it like cloud giant just sux in general; playing a toon that uses a huge weap is never going to be a good option without quite a few game edits, so again this is more of an aesthetic/satisfaction issue than overall balance issue (as was the case with redoing weapons in general).
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Post by chainlink on Oct 5, 2016 10:54:45 GMT
You've got to admit that when you wield the lance and it seems like its going to come out of the screen and poke you in the eye is hillarious though
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Post by Paradoom on Oct 11, 2016 9:40:37 GMT
The real issues with large weapons are the NWN engine limits. Not sure if you could hack that as well but my personal issue with those weapons and esp. in combination with large races is the range. As let´s say a Half-Cloud Giant I have a Lemure in front of me and behind it a Pit-Fiend. I am unable to hit the pit-fiend, cause the range of a merc-sword is nearly but the same as a dagger The other thing that annoys me but cannot be fixed is the attack angle. Again as a 2hander swinging my crazyly oversized weapon in a 120° in front of me I can only hit ONE mob instead of like 3 or 4 at once or do at least a bit of splash damage. So what´s left is to increase the weapons properties and I would very welcome at least to improve the crit-range or if not even range and modifier. Off-Topic: Half-Cloud Giant is a bad joke. We have smaller races that have more strength and better states in general than that one. This race would at least need +8 to strength base to make it somewhat reflecting it´s size and origin (+6 from subrace +2 from large sized -2 dex) + 2 feats. This alone wouldn´t make it much better but at least you´d get something for the big amounts of drawbacks of the size. E.g. you get no knockdown resist bonus since they are stats checks most of the time....
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Post by dopplegang on Oct 11, 2016 13:04:34 GMT
I have always found that the damage from the huge weapons was a complete waste of two very interesting weapon additions, and the fact that there is no bludgeon version is very disappointing as well. There are already only two options to choose from at all, if you wish to play a Large 2hander at all, and then to have those options no better and sometimes worse than smaller weapons seems to be an oversight, or maybe its just not fully decided yet. One simple way to address that would be the damage progression as discussed earlier, seeing as how it seems to fit in with the design philosophy already. I assume the philosophy acknowledged that those weapons requiring an extra feat, should have a bonus added to them to offset the cost of that feat. But the properties of the two huge weapons do not reflect that philosophy, or if it does then I have overlooked it. Hopefully one day we get to improve on some interesting weapons and make them and the huge 2hander builds more viable play options. As for a bludgeon option, maybe the Maul could be made huge, or a huge version of the Maul could be added that is nothing more than the maul with the huge properties added to it, keep it as simple as possible of course.
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Post by chainlink on Oct 11, 2016 13:06:17 GMT
Trouble is +8 to stats is an XR race benefit so you'd be treading on their toes with that, if it were possible to make the subrace immune to KD checks from any source that might give it enough of a boost to make it at least usable other than for making comedy characters with oversize weapons.
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Post by chirality on Oct 11, 2016 17:24:09 GMT
The real issues with large weapons are the NWN engine limits. right, but this was just about the base damage is too low to match with exotic type, which is lame, and base damage too low to match with weapon size, which makes no sense. Not sure if you could hack that as well but my personal issue with those weapons and esp. in combination with large races is the range. As let´s say a Half-Cloud Giant I have a Lemure in front of me and behind it a Pit-Fiend. I am unable to hit the pit-fiend, cause the range of a merc-sword is nearly but the same as a dagger The other thing that annoys me but cannot be fixed is the attack angle. Again as a 2hander swinging my crazyly oversized weapon in a 120° in front of me I can only hit ONE mob instead of like 3 or 4 at once or do at least a bit of splash damage. eh. not a big concern to me; i mean the visuals sux but so do a lot of other graphics-related things, like uncraftable appys in general, dragon shifters, and pharlan tails; it's just something we have to accept about HG and NWN. real physics for gfx/animations, bit out of reach; real physics for stuff like weapon damage, doable. just the fact that the damage is lower than a sword 1/3 its size, for stats that don't reward exotic expenditure, is what i want addressed. So what´s left is to increase the weapons properties and I would very welcome at least to improve the crit-range or if not even range and modifier. my above post was prolly tldr but the point was that in my humble opinion the crits are fine, just up the base damage cuz that's the system that last update put in place anyway
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Post by Paradoom on Oct 11, 2016 18:19:54 GMT
My point was not about visuals, but as it should actually be. At same time I´m well aware that this cannot be realized due to the limits of the engine.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 11, 2016 21:58:56 GMT
right, but this was just about the base damage is too low to match with exotic type, which is lame, and base damage too low to match with weapon size, which makes no sense. This specific thread may have been started over "niggling dissatisfaction over base damage", but huge weapons already needed serious re-balancing because there is simply no incentive to use them at the moment - medium-sized 2Hers beat large-sized 2Hers in practically every aspect, as you already mentioned.
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